


Shades of Black

by Dawnwind



Category: Invisible Man (TV 2000)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-06
Updated: 2011-04-06
Packaged: 2017-10-17 16:03:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 27,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/178540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dawnwind/pseuds/Dawnwind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After rescuing a senator's daughter from kidnappers, Darien gets mugged at an ATM. Coincidence or conspiracy?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shades of Black

Shades of Black  
By  
Dawnwind

 

Sixties tennis pro and TV super spy Kelly Robinson once observed that it's always darkest just before it goes pitch black. Now, I used to think that was a pretty pessimistic attitude, but I gotta admit, there's a lot of truth to it.

You ever had one of those weeks that's too good to be true? Everything going along so smoothly you start to get suspicious, waiting for the other shoe to drop? That's where I was--waiting for the Titanic to sink.  
It had been a week of absolutely gorgeous weather; endless blue skies, balmy winds that just ruffled the skirts of the girls walking on the marina and ocean waves so spectacular that the local surfing community held a festival. San Diego living up to all the hyperbole the travel industry likes to advertise. The tourists were lapping it up, midwesterners reveling in sunshine and spring flowers in the early part of February. Hell, even I was happy to be living there, and I'm a born and bred Californian.

Hobbes and me had just solved the kidnapping of a local senator's daughter. His P.R. people had insisted on keeping it low-key, no press, no police. Just one underfunded government agency dedicated to maintaining the American way or some sorta crap like that. Anyway, I figured out that he'd appealed to the Official cause they'd been in the same college fraternity. Keeping it all in one big happy Fed family, so to speak.  
Turns out the kidnappers were novices, not exactly experienced at kidnapping, much less the care and keeping of one very pissed off fifteen-year-old. They'd kept her cooped up without a cell phone, fingernail polish or AOL instant messenger--what was a 21st century teenager to do? She started bitching the way only a modern, very spoiled princess could do. It didn't take any real detective work to ferret out which disgruntled employee had it out for the senator, and all I had to do was do the ol' disappearing act and follow the ex-chauffeur to his girlfriend's house.

I could hear Shasta's foul mouth even outside the flimsy clapboard house. It's a wonder Ollie Baldwin didn't kill her just to shut her up. Kinda made me wonder if the senator really wanted Shasta back, but then who am I to judge? It was his kid. My mom had loved me, and it wasn't like I'd been any sort of prize and that was even before I became a thief.

I'd called in the cavalry--in my case agent extrordinaire Bobby Hobbes in his beat-up van, did one final quicksilver, walked in the back door of the little tract house, and liberated Shasta. The whole time, I could hear Baldwin and his prostitute girlfriend arguing over what to do with the girl. Shasta probably wouldn't have come quietly, except me flaking off quicksilver right in front of her shut her up as efficiently as if I'd gagged her. Her overly mascaraed eyes just popped out like a raccoon's in the porch light when they're caught eating the cat's food, and she took my hand, walking out like a proper little girl. Her silence didn't last long. Just like Princess Fiona in Shrek, she started in on how this wasn't the way she'd imagined it, and no way was she going to be rescued in some junkyard van by a balding gnome and a geek with no sense of style.

Bobby took offense to this, or at least pretended to, cause I could see the twinkle in his brown eyes. "Fawkes, did you hear what little Miss Senator's daughter just said? That you don't know how to dress?"  
He had pulled out of the kidnapper's driveway just as Clueless and the tramp came running out the front door, shouting as the van fishtailed around a corner. Hobbes had back-up, though, cause he actually knew what he was doing in the spy biz, and a car full of our agents pulled into the space we'd vacated, and gave Baldwin and Misty a lift to the Agency.

"I dunno, Hobbes, it was kind of insulting, but she called you a gnome. Don't you think you should apologize, princess?" I grinned down at the girl crouched in the back of the van, her arms wrapped around her long, shapely legs.

She was wearing the same outfit she'd been grabbed in the day before; lime green polar fleece pullover, hot pink plaid mini with a big box pleat in the front, ripped nylons and the kind of platform shoes that look like the Mafia could use them to weigh their 'drowning' victims so they don't resurface after a few days.

 _And she claimed I had no fashion sense._

Shasta's once perfect hair, blond with lime green streaks to match her pullover, was wild and ratted. I should have felt sorry for her, after all, she was a fifteen year old kid who'd been kidnapped, but her snotty attitude and disdainful expression made it hard to warm up to her.

"I'm just statin' the obvious. Sorry if you can't handle the truth," she spat, but her blue eyes still held just a hint of childlike innocence, "How did you do that, back there? One minute I was alone, then there you were…with like…fairy dust all around?"

"Fairy dust?" Hobbes chuckled.

"Listen, I think you must have been a little freaked out," I lied easily. "I just snuck in the back while Baldwin was arguing with his girlfriend."

"It's like you were…invisible. I didn't see you come in." She frowned. "Did my Daddy pay the ransom those shits asked?"

"Didn't have to," Hobbes said smugly. "Cause we found you before the deadline."

"He didn't have to pay anything?" Shasta fumed.

I got the distinct impression the  
senator might have to spend a lot of his tidy government income, not to mention breaking into a slush fund or two to appease his pissed-off little darling for that transgression. I was sure glad I didn't have to live with her.

We were the conquering heroes. The senator started out promising Shasta a ski vacation in the Swiss Alps to relieve her stress. He went on to promise our miserly boss, Charlie Borden, AKA the Official, some much-needed funds no doubt appropriated out of that slush fund or re-election campaign account.

The 'Fish was ecstatic, patting us on the shoulder, offering a shot of whiskey and calling me 'son'. He looked so proud of us I thought that his lackey Albert Eberts looked jealous. Didn't matter to Bobby or me, cause we got a bonus for the first time since I've worked at that sorry little agency.

"Ok, Fawkes, it's time to celebrate," Bobby crowed. "A night on the town for you and me, my friend."  
"Gimme a minute, Hobbesy." I waved a hand a him, "Got to check in with the Keep."

The quicksilvering I'd done that day had colored the little snake tattoo on my right wrist half red, and I'd gotten a shot of counteragent the day before. I knew that unless I went see through again, I had at least two more days before I needed a refill, but I just wanted Claire to be on the same page. The quicksilver in my blood builds up until it feels like I've got enough pressure in my head to run a turbo engine.

Sometimes I can get Claire to give me a shot before the pain gets so bad it's like shards of glass in my brain, but usually she makes me wait until the very last minute. She's afraid I'll develop a tolerance for the stuff and then need more and more, like a heroin addict. It's an idea that scares the crap outta me, except sometimes I just need the cure fast--before I hit the madness.

That scares me more. I've gone QS mad more times than I'd like to count and each time the overwhelming guilt of what I've done frightens me more and more. I've tried to kill Hobbes, attacked every one of my friends at the Agency, and amazingly they still treat me like a friend most of the time. The fact that Hobbes will be alone in a room with me after I tried to choke the life out of him with my bare hands still amazes me. So I just like to be safe these days. I check in with my Keeper every day like a good little lab rat.

"You look fine, Darien," she says in that British accent that never fails to send little shivers down my spine. Claire is a classy lady, all the more beautiful because she doesn’t have to work at it. She wears little make-up, a tip Shasta might adopt, has fantastic long blond hair and is probably the smartest person I've ever had the fortune to meet, and my brother Kevin was a certifiable genius.

But Kevin had been one of those people who had 90% of their smarts in one area and aren't really able to operate in the real world with the rest of us lesser mortals. Claire's smart but she doesn't flaunt it in your face.

"Just don't over do it in the next few days and I'll give you a booster shot on Monday morning."

"Bobby wants to celebrate the bonus, even if he hasn't got the money in his hot little hands yet," I say. Bobby Hobbes has been jonesing for a raise since the first minute I ever met him. He hasn't gotten one yet, and I hoped for his sake that this extra money actually did appear. "How'd you like to mingle with the super agents for a while."

"Might be fun." Claire giggled. "I haven't got any plans."

I had a few, though. Bobby Hobbes looks at Claire like she's some goddess out of a gossamer dream. I wanted them one on one, a few drinks knocked back to let the inhibitions out, so that my paranoid little partner could have some fun.

Hobbes was a strange mixture of tough, invincible trained agent and obsessive, psychotic neuroses. He'd been thrown out of just about every spy organization in the US government, which is why he was stuck here in the Agency with an untrained, convicted thief with an invisibility gland in his head for a partner. Hobbes was good, and he deserved better than he got, only he didn't really believe it. He deserved to get the girl, and Claire was the girl he deserved to get. I could see that she really liked him, too, but found him a little strange.

Therefore, I set my stage. A cozy bar, not quite a dive, but not a fern, white wine yuppie place with no soul. A nice bar with booths to relax in, and a fiftyish waitress with an unlit cigarette hanging from her red lipsticked mouth.

California law says no smoking in a bar, it says nothing about just sucking on a cancer stick. Maisy kept our glasses refilled and a snarky remark on her lips whenever she stopped by the table. After she heard about the bonus our boss in the 'textile industry, 'Bobby's cover story du jour, was giving us, she even convinced me to buy a lottery ticket. The jackpot was reported to be thirty million. Hell, if I won that maybe I could hire a team of scientists to get this damned gland out of my head.

I got a ticket, and then splurged on a length of scratchers for the hell of it. All three of us, half drunk after two hours of beer with taquila chasers, started in with our dimes to scratch away the silver covering that is remarkably like quicksilver.

"Ohh, I won five dollars!" Claire declared, a grin of triumph on her face. "How bout you, Bobby?"

"Nothin'." He held up his five cards, not a winning hand in the bunch. "Fawkes?"

"Just about done…" I trailed off, amazed. I'd never had any luck with these things before. I think the lottery is just some con the California government is pulling off anyway. It's supposed to be for the schools, but if so how come they're not the ones who get the thirty million, given out over twenty years? "I won a hundred bucks!"

"Fantastic!" Hobbes slapped me on the back with a laugh. "You buy the next round then."

"I think I will." I was as excited as the first time I'd ever pulled off a second story B and E. Huh, from stealing thousands in cash, negotiable bonds and jewels to winning one hundred honest dollars and getting a bonus the same day. Who says honesty doesn't pay?

I beckoned Maisy over and requested more beer, but there was a strange sensation lurking inside me. I was celebrating the successful end of a case with my two best friends, had money--at least figuratively--in my pocket, and yet there was something off. Things were too good. Something bad was about to happen.  
Mentioning my worry got me outrageous looks from the other two.

"Fawkes, you been hangin' around with Bobby Hobbes too long, you're getting paranoid," he dismissed casually, which surprised me. Hobbes is paranoid about everything, and he's superstitious, too. I'm usually the relatively rational one of the partnership.

"Darien, you need to relax." Claire giggled, taking my partner's hand, "Bobby's right, get another drink, we're going to dance." She jerked the surprised Hobbes off his feet and pulled him into an impromptu dance to the 80's song _Walk Like an Egyptian._

I remembered Claire once saying that after only one gin and tonic in college she'd been a party girl, and it showed. She was having a ball, encouraging Hobbes to bob and sway, both holding their arms up in the proper Egyptian hieroglyphic manner.

Maisy returned with the bar's owner, an ex-biker. For half a second, I thought we'd done something wrong, or that dancing to Bangles tunes in a Harley owner's place wasn't done, but he was just there to congratulate us on our winnings and exchange the tickets for actual greenbacks.

"I think I'm gonna go see who's on _'Politically Incorrect' tonight,_ " I said, only half faking a yawn that threatened to crack my jaw.

"You need a lift?" Hobbes immediately offered. He's never liked that I walk around my neighborhood at night. He's too sure there are people following him, and he may be right, but I was a thief. I've been sneaking around after dark since I was about thirteen years old. Funny thing is, I feel safer in the dark, where no one can see me. Kind of a strange thing for the invisible man to say, but there you are.

"Nah, stay, keep the Keeper company," I say. I'd picked the bar precisely because it was near my house, and I'd already stayed longer than I'd meant to. Not much of a date for Bobby and Claire if the third wheel was still around. "Looks like she still wants to dance."

Claire, in fact, was moving with a very sensual heat to that languid Latin number _Smooth_ by Santana.

"Dance with her, Hobbes."

"She was just havin' fun before," he protested but stood and gallantly offered her a hand when I shook my finger at him. They linked, getting into the rhythm without any difficulty. I watched for a second, feeling a little like an interloper before slipping out of the steamy bar into the cooler night air.

Taking deep breaths of the fresh air, I sauntered down the avenue. It's only three blocks over and one to the right to my place, but I wasn't in any hurry. Seeing the automated teller of my bank, I decided to stick my hard won dough where the sun don't shine and crossed the street in the middle of the block.

There was a time when I didn't trust a bank to keep my money safe, not that I'd ever robbed a bank, but it was just the principle of the thing. How secure was any safe if a punk like me could rob one? But these days I was becoming a nauseatingly law abiding citizen, with all the head trips that went along with that.

I pulled out the cool green see-through debit card issued by the bank and slipped it into the machine, typing in my pin number with one hand while pulling out my wallet with the other. You'd think a former thief, _hell anyone_ , would have had more sense.

"You making a deposit or a withdrawal?"

The voice came out of no where. My finger on the keypad froze, as a hand from behind me lifted the wallet out of my hand. "Listen," I started, "You don't…"

"Quiet, skinny," the voice growled in my ear. He had to be near my height, or standing on tiptoes to be that close. I started to turn towards the one who'd stolen my wallet having brilliantly ascertained that there were two of them.

"Well, looky here, he's got a Ben Franklin in here…and a badge. What, we got ourselves some kinda cop?"

"Give me that." I thought maybe I could intimidate them with sheer bravado. I made a grab for my wallet, seeing the punks for the first time. I'd been them once upon a time. Fearless, feckless no-accounts, maybe twenty years old.

One had half a dozen tiny gold hoops in his left ear, his hair short enough to qualify for the Marines. The other had a knife. It was all I saw. Earrings was rifling my pants pockets, the contents spilling out onto the ground when I jerked away from him, backing up against the bank wall.

Feigning a grab for the wallet, I tried a move Hobbes had taught me to disarm the knifer. I must not have paid enough attention cause the boy swiveled out of my reach, then lunged, the knife slipping past my arm and driving home, in between my ribs on the left side.

You ever been knifed? I'd had the pleasure once in prison, but that had been a short little handmade affair without a real sharp edge, It had broken the skin and hurt like hell, but not done a whole lot of internal damage. Right away, I knew this was way different. The kid's switchblade must have been six or more inches and well-honed. It slid in like a dream.

I grabbed hold of the kid's wrist, trying too late to prevent the inevitable, but the burst of pain drained my strength, my hand slipping.

"C'mon, Dex," Earrings hissed, "Leave him!"

Dex jerked the switchblade out, raking it across my right wrist as he wrenched it out of my body, turning to follow the one with my wallet. In a matter of seconds, it was all over, but everything had changed. I tried bracing my left arm on the bank wall to keep myself erect, but my legs wouldn't hold me. I slid down, leaving a bloody smear along the stuccoed wall.

 _Oh, crap._ This was bad.

From my vantage point on the sidewalk below the ATM, I could still see Hog Heaven bar across the street, on the corner, but it might as well have been a million miles away from the way I felt. My side was bleeding freely, red gore staining my favorite cowboy shirt. I really didn't notice the wound on my wrist until I made a move to stand up, bracing my hand on the ground.

Oh, double crap, that hurt.

I held up my arm in front of my eyes, automatically checking the tattoo for signs of redness. It was red all right, covered in blood from a long slash that arched from mid forearm to my palm, bisecting the snake perfectly. Damn.

By very slowly leaning forward with all my weight on my left hand, I was able to get to my knees. Okay, smart guy, how're you going to get out of this one? Planning to crawl all the way down to the crosswalk and back into the bar? I was suddenly very aware of all the times Hobbes had insisted I carry a cell phone, pager, beeper or anything. Then I could have gotten in touch with him--and Claire, who as a doctor would know what to do. And I was feeling really in need of a doctor just about then. My vision was undulating like one of those warped mirrors in a fun house, and it was getting hard to breathe.

Ever notice how every hero in the movies suddenly develops a cough after they've been wounded? It makes 'em seem all vulnerable, I guess. But I had to cough, cause there it was as if there was something stuck in my throat, preventing the air from getting in and out. Coughing hurt like a bitch, and I could feel my hold on consciousness wavering.

Don't do this. Stay at the party, guy, at least until you get a ride home.

With a lot of patience and sweat, I managed to hold onto the ATM counter and pull myself to a stand. My shirt was sticking wetly to my skin and I could feel the blood soaking into my pants, but if I buttoned my leather jacket, I thought I looked fairly presentable. Enough, at least, so that I wouldn't attract undue attention if I walked into the bar. I didn't have anything to wrap around my bleeding arm, so I stuck it in my pocket, where it stayed, useless and throbbing in time with my heart.

Luckily, I didn't have to. There was a payphone half way down the street, set into the wall of the Sprint superstore. I'd already discovered there was no way I could walk one block, much less cross to the other corner in my current condition. I could have kissed the pay phone, but needed all my concentration just to find the quarter in my jacket pocket and insert it into the slot all one handed.

Good thing Earrings and his tall friend had been impressed with my hundred and hadn't gone through my jacket. I had enough for a phone call, with a few pennies to spare and my house keys. Always useful to keep hold of those. I dialed Hobbes' cell phone number from memory, hoping he heard it over the jukebox.

It rang three times before I heard his distracted, "H'lo?" Bare Naked ladies was playing one of my favorite songs in the back ground, and I wished like hell I'd stayed at the bar.

"Hobbes." My voice sounded like I'd run about ten miles, there was no force behind it.

"Fawkes?" Good little Tiger, he must heard how bad I sounded. "What's wrong? Where are you?"

I told him, hearing myself talk as if from a long way off, Good thing they didn't have to go very far to find me, cause I was fading fast.

+++++++++++++++

"Fawkes? C'mon, open those baby browns." Hobbes was talking to me but I couldn't quite do as he said. Nothing was co-operating, but I could tell I was lying on the sidewalk because the cement was cold under me.

In fact, I was so cold I wished there was some way to turn on the heat. We're still outside, Einstein, I thought distractedly.

"Darien, we need you to help us." Claire touched my forehead, I could recognize her touch anywhere. "Who did this?"

Without opening my eyes, I tried for speech. Didn't need sight as long as I could speak. "Mugged." I mutter.

"Here by the phone?" Hobbes asked obviously confused.

"Bank."

"I'll go check it out!" he called, his feet making loud sounds running down the block.

"Bobby, I think we should just get him back to the Keep where I can stitch up this wound." Claire declared. Good girl, make like a doctor and give me something for the pain. I thought maybe I'd be able to talk a whole lot better with some drugs, but then I've said some of the stupidest things after smoking a joint, so maybe not. I was certainly game to experiment with the concept, though.

"Hurts, Claire." Wow, two word sentences.

"I know, Darien. Bobby'll be back soon with the van," she soothed, holding something against my side to stop the bleeding. The thing is, I really didn't like her pressing on my open wound cause it just intensified the pain about ten fold and I was almost ready to scream when I heard the familiar sound of Golda's worn out muffler.

"C'mon, Fawkesy, time for a ride," Bobby encouraged. He grasped my right arm while Claire caught my left and I couldn't help it, I did scream. "What! What'd I do?" he cried, sounding contrite.

"Don't…don't, I can walk…" I was in a more or less upright position by then and with only a little effort, could see the broad side of a van directly in front of me. I curled my slashed arm against my chest, but obviously not before the Keeper had caught a glimpse.

"Darien." She slid an arm around me, steadying me. Claire's fairly tall--she tops Hobbes by three or four inches, more in the heels she had on then, and she's deceptively strong, so I felt solid, despite my whole body trembling like a teenager in one of those Scream movies. "Your arm…" she tsked, "Bobby, get me something to wrap around this, he may have nicked the artery."

Crap, that doesn't sound good. It's no wonder I felt lightheaded. I've seen enough episodes of ER to know the artery's important but at the moment I couldn't remember why.

Getting back to the Agency and into Claire's domain took more effort than I thought I had in me, and I truly don't remember much of the trip. Once I was ensconced on the torture chair where I already spend an inordinate amount of my time, Claire did what she does best, give me injections. We'd recently discovered that morphine gives me some really unpleasant side effects, or to be specific, to the gland, so Claire had stocked up on Demerol. This combined with a local anesthetic injected directly into my side and my arm did a great deal to bring back some sense to my brain.

She spent a long time doing unpleasant things to my arm while I was still too out of it to notice much except that I really didn't like it. I was more than glad when she finally went away to get more equipment. The painkillers had worked their own brand of magic, and while I probably couldn't have lasted a set with Agasse, I was beginning to feel less like I'd died on Sandoval street.

"You're lucky not to have punctured a lung." Doctor Claire dropped something into a basin, wiping her hands on a rag.

The red stains across the cloth turned my stomach. That was my blood. It should have been warm and safe inside me.

"How'd you know?" Hobbes asked, his face also a little grossed out by the overabundance of gore in the room.

"He'd be having trouble breathing if he had," she answered, peering at the wound in my side. "It's stopped bleeding. The knife must have been very sharp and left a nice, clean entry wound."

Okay, that was way more information than I really wanted to know, thanks just the same. Claire gave an experimental little push on the rib just above the knife wound. I ground my teeth down to stumps not to make a sound.

"In relation to your arm, this is much smaller in diameter," she continued speaking in that slightly professorial tone. "Luckily, I think the knife went into muscle without damaging anything significant."

"I think I'm pretty significant." I complained.

"You are. That's why I'm going to have to sew this up first," Claire said absently, looking very medical with a curved, threaded needle in her latex gloved hands. She'd wiped my arm clean but small beads of bright red blood kept welling up all along the edges of the incision.

"You just really get off on sticking needles into me, don't you?" I tried not to wince, averting my eyes as she stuck the damned fishhook into my wrist.

It's not like I haven't had stitches before, I just hate watching. It's kind of gross to think of being trussed up like some Thanksgiving turkey filled with onion dressing. The needle didn't hurt very much, not with double painkillers, but the pressure and slithery feeling of the thread pulling through my tender flesh was like fingernails on a black board.

I tried to distract myself by talking to Bobby, who, turned out, needed a lot of distraction himself. He was fixedly watching Claire's needlepoint technique like a judge at a stitchery competition, very pale around the gills.

"Bobby," I said raggedly. Not getting any response from my partner, I tried for louder, leaning forward a little to get his attention. Not a good idea. My side protested the movement vehemently, and for a second I thought I was going to pitch right off the exam chair. Got everybody's attention, though.

"Sit back, Darien, you really don't want to be moving when I have a needle in your wrist," Claire chastised. "Are you alright?"

She laid a gentle hand on my forehead, but I was still focusing on the ceiling, cause the floor was tilting around way too much for me. "Is that a rhetorical question?" I panted with an open mouth, and things in the lab started responding to the law of gravity again.

"You're scarin' her," Hobbes spoke finally, but it wasn't hard to tell who I was scaring.

"Hobbes, did you find anything at the bank?" I asked to keep my mind off Claire's handiwork.

"Besides lots of your blood?" he snapped, but at least he's got some color back and stopped obsessing on my wrist. "Nope, just some stuff that must have fallen out of your pocket-gum, a comb and a lockpick. And I thought all you needed was a Bic pen."

"No wallet?" I asked with a sinking sensation in my belly, which already wasn't feeling really good.

"Aw, yah, you lost that hundred, huh?" He remembered sympathetically.

"That's not all…ow, Claire!" I gritted my teeth as she tied off her thread one last time and admired her sutures.

"Don't be such a baby." She began wrapping a long gauzy bandage around my thumb and across my palm, encircling my arm all the way up to the elbow.

"I can't see the tattoo," I complained. It's gotten so if I don't at least glance at that little snake once or twice a day, I get real nervous.

"Well," she hesitated with an expression I've come to recognize and loathe. It's her 'I have something to tell you that you won't want to hear' face and so far she's never been wrong. I know I don't want to hear what she's about to say when she started biting her lip and fiddling with the nasty looking long nosed pincher things she'd used to hold her needle with.

"What?" My voice was too high pitched and whiny sounding. "It's bad, isn't it?" I finish in a lower register.

"You got cut right through the tattoo," Claire started.

"I know that."

"Gonna leave a hellova scar," Bobby interjected.

"Bobby!" She frowned. "Darien, you've damaged the monitor. I had to remove the device. I'm afraid it may not work as it's supposed to until I can repair it."

"This is serious. There were six spaces red the last time I looked. Do you mean we can't tell when I'm getting close to madness, now?"

"I'm afraid so," she agreed with a pinched look on her pretty face.

"Oh, that is bad." Hobbes put in his two cents worth. "Might have to break out the restraints."

"That is not going to happen!" I yelled. I was panicking but I get hit with one of the ice pick through the gland headaches often enough now. Before Claire played artist and gave me the little snake eating its tail tattoo with its hidden monitor, I almost never knew when the madness was going to hit. "Claire, you have to fix it!"

"I need to study it further." Claire put a gentle hand on my shoulder, easing the chair back until it was fully reclined. Even with all the painkillers, that movement hurt enough to have me close to tears. "Under the circumstances I don't want to take any chances."

"What circumstances?" I persisted, "Going insane could be really dangerous."

"I second that." Bobby nodded vigorously, having been present often enough when I'm in full-blown insanity. "But, hey, partner, you've had that thing in your head for over a year now…"  
I could quote him year, month, day and hour, but I didn't.

"And I think by now you're getting' good at telling when it's getting close to…" Bobby curled his fingers like talons and made a crazy face. "Red eye time. You don't need any monitor to tell you those things. Trust yourself."

Trust myself. That was harder than he knew. I had only learned to trust Hobbes and Claire after a lot of hard work and screw-ups along the way, and I still was amazed that they trusted me after what I'd done. Bobby's words were comforting, if nothing else. Did he really believe I could gauge my own reactions that accurately? Cause frankly, the monitor hadn't even worked that well if I wasn't near counteragent right away.

"Lie still," Claire commanded in her best doctor mode. "I'm going to close up this wound now."

"Claire," I hissed. For whatever reason this hurt much more than her stitching my arm had. It's really difficult to breathe knowing there's a needle just below your lung, piercing the muscle. I had never been into sticking metal wherever it looked the most painful just to be fashionable.

"Oh, that's nasty." Hobbes screwed up his face, wrinkling his nose.

"You have to keep making asinine comments?" I snarked, taking as tiny breaths as possible.

"You think I'm asinine, Fawkes?" He flared, as I'd known he would. "What is it you lost with your wallet?"  
"My department badge…" I grunted, trying to ignore the blond head two inches from my pectorals. "And—uh, my key card to the keep."

Claire's head jerked up, her fingers pulling too tightly on the thread still attached to my epidermis. Her face was only inches from mine, her pupils small black dots from having to focus so closely. "What?"

"Oh, the Fat Man's gonna skin you alive, my friend." Bobby sighed.

"She already is." I gritted my teeth, facing Claire down.

She went back to suturing my open wound back together, her fingers moving with impressive speed. It was taking everything I had not to moan loudly with what she was doing, and there was nothing sexually satisfying about it.

"I can't believe you lost that. This is a Federal agency with extremely sensitive information stored here," she vented, round pink spots coloring both her cheeks.

And I thought I was scary when I was QS mad. At least I never have wicked sharp needles to poke people with.

"Do you know what could happen if someone breaks in here, Darien? All my computers. The QS research. My snake!"

"Never liked that snake," Bobby muttered.

"I'm done." She slapped a dressing over my ribs, sticking on pieces of tape with tightly controlled movements.

"I didn't ask to get mugged." I finally took a deeper breath, even though it was like stabbing myself all over again. I just wanted to be home and in my own bed without crazed blond doctors and neurotic partners. "Y'know, I've got a headache, too."

"I saw only six red spaces when I stitched up your arm." Claire crossed her arms, still angry but visibly calmer. "Have you quicksilvered since this afternoon?"

"No."

"Then your headache's probably from the blood loss. I'll set up an IV to help the dehydration." She turned away, collecting medical equipment from the shelves.

"No more needles, Claire." I sat up very slowly, Bobby's strong arm helping to steady me. "Why can't you repair the monitor?"

Claire stood there holding a plastic bag labeled Lactated Ringers in one hand like she was estimating its weight, and she looked more unhappy than angry. "You got knifed, Darien. You need antibiotics to combat infection. Who knows what was on that knife. I'm sure it wasn't sterile."

"Keep, you're babbling," Bobby said softly.

Taking a deep breath, she looked up, facing me for the first time in a while. "I really want your arm to heal up and a full course of antibiotics before I go mucking about reinserting the monitor."

"But that'll take acoupla weeks."

"Yes," she agreed unhappily.

"Oh, crap." Bobby joined me in the sentiment.

+++++++++++++++++

Unfortunately, my own bed didn't really help as much as I'd hoped. Everything hurt. Leaving two agents to watch over the keep in case of a sneak attack, Bobby volunteered to take me home and act like a nursemaid for the night. Claire warned me to keep drinking fluids or she'd hook me up to an IV faster than I could say Guy Fawkes. I knew I was pretty loopy when this struck me as overly funny.

Lying in the dark, I listened to Hobbes breathe from his uncomfortable position on the couch. I could tell he wasn't asleep cause he rumbles as loudly as his van's muffler when he snores.

"Fawkes, you awake, buddy?" came his voice, right on time.

I was about to crawl out of my skin. To be honest, I think I was just a little freaked from having been mugged on a public street. "Yep."

"Did you get a good look at the muggers?"

"Sort of."

"Sort of? Partner, you're going to have to do better'n that. C'mon, describe them."

"Two. One as tall as me." I closed my eyes, trying to visualize the scene. When I was a working thief, I used to be able to case a joint once and memorize the placement of every piece of furniture and boostable object in the room. But the faces of the two kids don't come. The local Claire used was wearing off, and my arm was throbbing and my side screaming. I should've taken another pill but that would've involved getting out of bed. "Dark hair, thin…"

"Sounds like you."

"Huh. It was me, about fifteen years ago."

"A punk. Don't let me kid you, you're still a punk." The warmth in his voice belied his words and I couldn't help but smile. "The other one?"

"Six earrings in his left ear. Buzz cut…blond almost colorless hair."

"There y'see? You got more than you thought."

I could see the knife coming at me, and I broke out in a cold sweat. "The knifer…had a tattoo." It's like I can just barely see it, cause I'd been so focused on the length of the blade.

"He is you."

"A skull…? With something around it, like flowers."

"A Deadhead?" Bobby guessed. "I usta listen to their music, once upon a time."

A new revelation about Bobby Hobbes! I shifted around in the bed to look over at him, forgetting to move carefully. The sound that came out of my mouth was embarrassing.

"I'll get the Demerol," Bobby said dryly, suiting action to his words. He brought over the whole bottle, handing me a pill and a glass of water.

My hand was shaking when I took the drug and I'm glad it was too dark for Hobbes to see that. "The 'Fish can get the keep's locks changed, can't he?"

"Oh, sure." Bobby's tendency for pomposity breaks through, he was practically strutting. ''No problem. There's a guy who does nothing but. He's good, really good."

"Expensive?" I know the Official won't be happy about that.

"Well…" Hobbes shrugged expansively, letting the word trail off. "So, tomorrow I can go over to the bank and get the security camera out of the ATM. Get some sleep, partner."

I lay waiting for the Demerol to take affect, trying to recapture the image of the skull tattoo, but it stayed tantalizingly out of range until I fell asleep.

++++++++++++++++++++++++

It's probably the worst picture ever taken of me and I've had enough mug shots taken to fill a photo album. Your face is too close to the camera when you're using the ATM keypad, filling the camera with nose, and then half the time I had my back to the lens. Longlegs and Earrings were almost too far back to really identity, but luckily five star rated agent Alex Monroe knows how to use PhotoShop on her computer.

I watched absently, trying not to think too much about holes in my side and getting mugged by stupid ass kids. Who'd have thought I would be on the receiving end after all these years?

Hobbes had taken me down to the police department first thing in the morning, but they were not overly enthusiastic when we told them I'd been attacked the night before, hadn't bothered to report it and hadn't even gone to the hospital. Their opinion was if we hadn't needed them then, why did we need them now? So, back to our back up plan--investigate it ourselves. I kinda liked the D.I.Y. way better, anyhow.

Alex worked a little digital magic and printed out two grainy photos of the kids. "Here's your perps."

"Gee, I wish I could talk all law enforcement like that," I mouthed off, studying the pictures.

"Recognize 'em?" she asked gruffly, one perfectly rounded eyebrow halfway to her hairline.

"Well, duh. But the point is, can we find 'em?" And my key card before someone starts rifling through the QS research and finds out about the seventeen million dollar gland in my head.

"I'll talk to my contact down at the P.D. He can get some mug books…" Monroe gave me a direct look, almost as if she was challenging me to come up with their identities on the spot.

"Dex." The name swims out of my subconscious, tagging the taller one.

"What?"

"That's Dex," I said more confidently. "I don't know why I didn't remember his name before."

"Cause you were on drugs." Hobbes came into Monroe's elegantly appointed office, pushing closed the door. "Does funny things to the mind--believe me, I know."

"Where were you?" I asked. If my memory was that bad on Demerol, I'm glad I switched to Tylenol with codeine for the daylight hours.

"Covering your butt, Penelope." Hobbes flipped the dead bolt on the door. "The 'Fish is after blood--yours, my friend."

"I already gave at the office. You didn't tell him where I was, did you?"

"Bobby Hobbes does not fink on his partner." Hobbes pulled himself up to his full height.

"No, he just comes up here to hide with you." Monroe put in her unwanted two cents.

"What I want to know is why you're still here. I told you to go home." Hobbes looked at me with concern, ignoring the five star-rated agent. "You look like death warmed over."

"Hey, I was pretty convincing as Death in A Christmas Carol in eighth grade." I grinned, trying to hide the mild fever and throbbing pain from Bobby's probing eyes.

"No kidding? You were Death? You mean the Ghost of Christmas future?"

I nodded.

"I was Ghost of Christmas present in sixth grade," he boasted. "Big holly wreath on my head and a turkey leg in my hand…"

"Hobbes, you're Jewish."

"It's called acting, my friend, crosses all religions."

"Well, unless you two are planning on an all agency pageant for next Christmas, since you missed the one two months ago, I suggest we get back to the business at hand," Monroe said, looking bored.

"Oh, listen, Hobbes, I've got a name for this one." I handed him the overly dark copy of one of my muggers. "Dex."

"Dexter? Dexly?" Hobbes tried out. "No Deadhead would have a name like that."

"Alex!" I straighten too fast, pressing a hand to my aching side. "Can you pull up a Grateful Dead site on the 'net?"

"Nostalgic for bad rock and roll from before you were born, Fawkes?" she sniped, but typed rapidly, leaning back as a line of rainbow colored dancing bears boogied across the screen to the most recognizable of Jerry Garcia's tunes, _Truckin'_.

"Find one of their skulls." I watched over her shoulder. "With the rose wreathes…"

"That's it," Hobbes declared after we'd flipped through bios on most of the band and a cool guitar with a tiger on it.

Except it wasn't it. That wasn't the tattoo on the back of Dex's hand. "Nope," I shook my head resignedly. "It needs to be darker…Marilyn Manson."

"You mean Monroe?" Hobbes corrects.

"Not me." Alex threw up her hands. "I don't know where this trip through music memorabilia is heading, Fawkes, but if you don't get to a point soon, I'm closing up my computer and taking my marbles home."

"Alex, what does Marilyn Manson bring to mind?" I mused, remembering a few dark years in prison where his music was exactly where my mind was at.

"Who is that?" Hobbes questioned.

She sighed with annoyance, pursing her pretty red tinged lips. "Um--heavy metal, really loud guitar riffs, Satan worship…maybe Alice Cooper."

"Okay, I know who he is." Hobbes nodded. _"School's out'."_

"Goth." I said poking a finger at Dex's image, frozen with knife in hand. My back had been to the camera, so when she'd cropped the image, Alex had included my left shoulder. It gave me the creeps. "It wasn't a skull, it was like a devil or a vampire." With that word, the other half of the equation dropped into place and I never even made it through calculus. "Hobbes, did the clean-up crew get Shasta Markov's stuff? Her school books and shit from Baldwin's house?"

"I'll check. But what about the Official? Can't avoid him forever."

"I can try."

Hobbes grinned, he always enjoys a good conspiracy. "I'll meet you outside by the van," he said, waiting while I let the quicksilver glide up one arm until it coated me in a chilly invisible disguise. Then he unbolted the door.

There's a real other worldly quality when I'm quicksilvered. I see in shimmery shades of gray, like those old movies from the thirties. Every once in a while I half expect to meet Bette Davis smoking a cigarette or that bombshell Jean Harlow. I'd spent most of my second time in stir watching their movies.

It's both heady and weird to be able to glide right past people without them noticing you're there. Luckily, I made it down the hall of the Agency and out to the street without notice. After all, every one at the current Department of Health and Human services knew about me. While we may not have enough in the budget to pay for the cool thermal glasses that allow our enemies to see me in the ether, so to speak, every one of our people had experience with me invisible. Hobbes says there is a cold spot wherever I am. That's a definite giveaway.

"Shake off the fairy dust, pally." Hobbes was sitting in the front seat of the van and started up the engine as soon as I was in.

I let the quicksilver flake off, picking up a pile of books from the floor. The long trek down from Alex's office winded me more than I expected, and I was sweating like a pig. The less said about arm and ribs the better.

"Math book, binder, pencil case and vampire romance novel," Bobby listed when I'm settled.

"Vampire romance novel?" I echoed, perusing the lurid cover. That's a new genre for me. 'Midnight Liaison' featured a Tom Cruise clone nuzzling the nubile neck of a redhaired teenager wearing a high school letter jacket.

"Goth," we said in unison.

"The thing is, Shasta wasn't exactly Lily Munster."

"Lily Munster was hot." Hobbes took Golda in a tight right, heading as far away from the Agency as we could get in the next few minutes.

"You didn't like Marilyn?" I asked, flipping through the math book. Either Shasta was way smarter than I thought, or it wasn't her book.

"First one or second?" Hobbes glanced my way.

"Either." I shrugged. I'd found a graded homework page folded in the middle of the book with a bright red B plus above the name, "Brit'nee Cannell."

"I don't think she was in the Munsters."

"No. It's her book."

"Not Shasta Markov's?" Bobby turned a corner, pulling the van to a stop in front of a Starbucks.

"She must be cribbing off her friend Brit'nee." I turned the binder over and there it was. A black lined drawing of a lean faced vampire with pointy fangs. His prominent cheekbones and sunken dark eyes are evocative of a skull. It's definitely the same as the Dex's tattoo. There was a funereal wreath of black leaves encircling the evil looking creature. I remembered seeing the binder for a split second before leading Shasta out of Baldwin's house.

"Think Shasta drew that?"

"She's pretty good, it she did, but again I say she was more Cher from Clueless, not a Goth princess."

"A boyfriend?" Hobbes hooked a finger under the front of the binder to open it up. There's a clear plastic page of photo pockets displaying Shasta and a variety of friends. One grabbed my attention real fast.

"Dex." I pointed.

"Isn't he a little old for her?" Hobbes remarked in a fatherly tone.

The kid was more vamp looking in the photo than I remembered from last night. He's wearing a long black duster, black silk shirt and very tight pants. His hair is combed back from the forehead to reveal a prominent widow's peak. A gorgeous girl who has one black lace gloved hand linked through his, is also dressed a la Anne Rice. "Well, not Shasta's boyfriend, anyway."

"This just gets more and more convoluted." Hobbes stared out the windshield, watching the comings and goings from the coffee shop.

"You think the kidnapping and the mugging had anything to do with the other?" I don't like where this might be going one bit.

"Just because you're a conspiracy theorist doesn't mean there isn't a conspiracy." Hobbes paraphrased. "We need to proceed cautiously on this. You want some coffee?"

I'd really like about six painkillers and my bed, but I nodded, inspecting the rest of the binder. Shasta is a pretty good artist with a macabre style. Her class notes are decorated with other vampires, sketches of the rock group KISS, and pretty good knock offs of the Gothic illustrator Edward Gorey.

When Hobbes climbed back in the driver's seat, he was carrying two double espressos and some croissants. I took a sip of my coffee, that first jolt of potent caffeine doing a lot for my weariness.

"Couldn't find a Noah's for bagels?" I teased, stowing the coffee between my knees so that I could eat one of the pastries.

"All the way at the end of the block." Bobby gestured with his croissant. "Too far to walk."

"In the Marines, didn't you have to go on forced marches for miles?" I laughed, "You can't walk a whole block?"

"My point exactly. Never liked those forced marches." Bobby answered obtusely, mouth full of flaky crumbs. "I think we should go over to Senator Markov's house and find out Dex's last name and who those other kids are."

+++++++++++++++

When we'd first had to interview the Markov house staff only two days ago, Hobbes had struck up quite a relationship with the housekeeper, one Fernanda. Built like a fireplug, with black hair pulled severely back into a tight bun and the traditional maid's outfit, she simpered like a schoolgirl every time Hobbes came near her.

With this perfect opportunity, I let him go get the kids' addresses out of her while I waited in the van. I would have slept, but the espresso had kinda kicked that in the butt. So, I sat there with my sunglasses on against the brilliant February sun, and quietly buzzed. Probably caffeine and Tyco aren't the best combination.

Fernanda waved at Hobbes the whole walk back to the van and blew a kiss as he opened the driver's seat door.

"She's got a crush on you." I sing-songed, launching into a version of that school yard favorite, "Bobby and Fernanda sittin' in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G."

"Hey, whatever works." Hobbes grinned smugly. "Dex Ryan, but Fernanda doesn't know his address, Brit'nee Cannell, 19 Del Mar Court, which is just round the corner and Nathan Allegretto, 57 Alta Linda Way."

"Let me guess." I pulled out the page of photos, searching for a blond haired kid with lots of gold in his ears. "Him." There was only one shot of him, a profile from the wrong side, so I'd missed it the first time, since there were no earrings on the right. But he still had the colorless hair, this time streaked with blue. "Wouldn't be surprised he goes with Shasta. Their hair matches."

"Isn't it kinda strange to have two—uh--vanilla kids hangin' with two Goths?" Hobbes guided the van literally around the corner to a house that must share a common back fence with the Markov house.

"Shasta and Brit'nee must have grown up playing over the fence." I observed, "And maintained it even in high school."

"I hated high school." Hobbes set the brake in park, examining the house. Like the one directly behind it, it was probably worth a cool mil, but without any redeeming qualities. Far too large for the lot it sat on, it gave the impression of a hulking, steroid bulked weight lifter, since the second story jutted out over the first story like a set of bar bells.

I got arrested for the first time in high school, trying to get into the second story of a house not dissimilar to this one. "Not my favorite memories, either."

"I'll go talk to the girl."

"Uh, Hobbes, I think it's my turn." I turned away to wrestle with the door handle and hide the wince that I couldn't control whenever I moved. "I speak the lingo better'n you."

"Is that a crack about my age?" he bristled.

"No--believe me, I far prefer to have a good shot behind me in case of attack." I soothed, thinking fast.

"You're sure you're up to this?" Hobbes said with real concern in his face.

"I promise to go home and lie down after this, Dad." I held up the Boy Scout fingers.

"THAT was a crack about my age." Hobbes' voice called after me as I walked up the driveway to the portico.

I knocked on the oversized oak slab posing as a door, hoping I didn't have to explain myself to some non-English speaking maid, cause I was already feeling the effects of all the day's walking with fresh sutures. Amazingly, the person who opened the door was just whom I wanted to speak with. When do I ever get that kind of luck?

Brit'nee, with the unnecessary apostrophe, was truly a stunner in person. Black sloe eyes like that singer Lauren Hill from the Fugees regarded me with a mixture of suspicion and interest. She had just enough African-American in her genetics to give her an exotic appeal, that indefinable 'it' that pouty white bread Shasta couldn't quite achieve. She was undoubtedly breaking teen-aged hearts in high school at sixteen. I felt old.

After checking each other out for several beats, I realized she recognized me.

"My name's Darien Fawkes." I flipped out my back-up badge with my bandaged hand, an old one from when we'd been under the shield of Fish and Game. No picture ID, but hopefully she wasn't that savvy. Even holding up the flimsy piece of plastic hurt like hell, and I dropped the badge and my hand into my coat pocket and left them there.

"You're the guy who rescued Shasta." She pointed with one perfectly manicured black painted nail. In fact everything Brit'nee wore was black, but she had such a sense of style that the overall impression wasn't Morticia Adams but dark mysterious temptress.

"Yep."

"She said you appeared out of nowhere."

I chose to ignore that remark. "You are Brit'nee Cannell?"

"Just Brit. I lost the 'nee like in kindergarten," she replied.

"I'm still gathering information on the investigation into Shasta's kidnapping." I improvised. "When did you last speak with her? I thought she went to Gstaad."

"She couldn't just go skiing without getting a new outfit for the slopes, could she?" Brit had that slightly superior disdainful tone only teenaged girls can really perfect, and God knows I've tried. I've come to the conclusion that it's hormonal--too much testosterone just doesn't give a guy the right inflection.

"God forbid," I muttered. "So, you two went to the mall this morning?"

"Yes." She flipped back a ropy curtain of tiny black braids, "Shasta's got her own credit card."

And her credit max is probably twice as high as mine. "Did you meet Dex there?"

I'd finally surprised her.

"How'd you know?" She blurted before her eyes widened, knowing she shouldn't have given anything away.

"Probably slurped some lemonade at the Hot dog on a Stick place, then cruised the latest black lace…He probably flashed a fresh hundred in front of you. Did he buy you a Valentine's gift?"

"Listen, I can't talk anymore." Brit backed up, hand on the brass doorknob, her face suddenly impassive.

"S'okay, I don't really need to talk to you." I knew that would get to her. Gorgeous dark eyes narrowed, but she twisted the diamond stud in her left ear, uncertain of what she should say.

"Dex was there this morning, but he didn't go with us to see Shasta off at the airport," she supplied, "He had stuff he had to do today. Said he had something that was worth a lot of scratch."

Then I knew why she'd recognized me so easily. "You saw my badge."

"Just now," she fudged, "You put it in your pocket."

"No. You knew my face. Dex must have shown you my picture ID. Was that what he wanted to sell…?"

"No, it was…" Brit froze, having incriminated her boyfriend. "You'd better get out of here."

"He's crazy if he thinks my badge is worth money. I got a whole boxfull at home. Where does he live?"

"Don't know, don't care," she said flippantly.

"Dex robbed me and stuck his knife between my ribs." I leaned in as threateningly as possible, feeling the stitches in my side protest. But being six foot three has some advantages, I loomed over her.

Brit was a tough character, though, she held her ground for half a minute before backing up and slamming the door in my face.

Guess threatening wasn't gonna do it. Maybe if I got some black clothes and really white powder for my face like that guy on SNL--what was his name? Aslan? Nope, that was the lion in Narnia. Azreal Basque! Goth extroidinaire. I could probably get a date with her like that, but if I had to take bets, I think she still wouldn't have given me Dex's address. Time to do it the old fashioned way, use the phone book.

Phone book didn't give up any more information than Brit had. Luckily, Hobbes has what he calls Hobbesnet. I don't know who these guys are, but they usually get results. Not always exactly the results we wanted in the first place, but results of some kind.

"I got an address," Hobbes announced, flipping closed his cell phone. He peered anxiously at my face. "You don't look so good."

"Good, I wouldn't want to misrepresent myself." I leaned against the van, too spent to even open the door. I hate this one handed business. "I feel like shit."

"Getting a headache or anything? Cause you were see-through for a few minutes…" Hobbes fretted, "Maybe we should go see the Keep?"

"Hobbes, give me a minute. We need to track down Dex and get that card back. Brit says he planned to sell it."

"Why would he know it had value?" Hobbes yanked open the passenger door, giving me some not so subtle help climbing in. "A Department of Health and Human services badge ain't quite in the same league as CIA or FBI."

"It's ID, I guess. To teenagers, that's gold." I would have chuckled, but my ribs hurt too much. "I had a driver's license when I was fourteen, claimed I was twenty-one."

"You were probably six feet tall at fourteen." Hobbes started the engine.

"Not quite, but taller'n you are now." I couldn't quite keep the grin off my face as Hobbes fumed good-naturedly. "I am wonderin' if Dex knew what the key card was for?"

"It's blank." Hobbes pondered this, "But if he knew who you were…?"

"How could he know? That's classified. I'm just a thief."

+++++++++++++++++

Naturally, Dex wasn't at home. He lived in a row of low rent apartments appallingly near my place, only a block or so away. I say appallingly because we were neighbors. He could have seen me and Hobbes coming and going any number of times. We probably passed one another at the grocery or the thrift shop. Could he have known who I was?

It took me less than two minutes, basically one handed, to open the lock with the pick Bobby had thoughtfully remembered to return to me. The whole time I worked he kept going on about me just using a ballpoint for the job.

"Hobbes, that's for emergencies," I stressed, hearing the flimsy lock snick open. _Geeze, could he give it a rest?_ Just because he'd seen me do it once that way.

"Could you do it with a…" Hobbes had drawn his pistol, holding a hand out for me to wait while he scoped out the place. He advanced cautiously into the room, poking into each interior door before giving me the all clear. "A fork?"

"What?" I wasn't paying attention to Hobbes' ramblings, looking about the tiny apartment for any of my missing stuff.

"Could you pick a lock with a fork? Or an earring?"

"French hook or stud?" I asked absently. Dark curtains covered the windows, so there was no danger of any of his neighbors seeing us. A corkboard like the kind sold at university bookshops featured several of Shasta's more gruesome sketches.

"Stud." Hobbes nodded.

"Never tried." I shrugged, holding onto my side. "Used a light bulb once, though."

"Pretty smooth." Hobbes looked impressed. I loved that he was the first person I'd ever told who didn't ask me how. Hobbes just already knew that you had to break the bulb first to get to the filament wire. Its little stuff like that that really cements a partnership together.

"What is a French hook anyway?" Hobbes asked, "Sounds dirty." He peered at the room's furnishings. A lumpy futon, bare boards separated with bricks to create a lop sided bookshelf and the little TV on a milk carton reminded me of my first apartment. "None of your stuff," Hobbes declared.

"Dracula, Frankenstein, lots of Anne Rice…" I perused the bookshelf. Pretty much required reading for the Goth set.

"Any of her kinky stuff?" Hobbes looked up from rifling through a file box full of papers.

"The Sleeping Beauty trilogy?"

"Classics." Bobby nodded with a wink.

"Hobbesy, I never knew!" I pictured him settling in behind triple-locked doors for a good night's read of 'whip the princess,' and laughed. Usually I'm pretty good at multi-tasking, but I took a step while laughing and was suddenly almost nose to ratty carpet. Hobbes grabbed my left arm, hauling me upright. The pain that lanced up my side from waist to armpit left me gasping with little black dots dancing in front of my eyes. "Oh, God."

"I knew you should have stayed at home," Hobbes fretted, immediately apologetic and concerned. "I never shoulda let you come. Claire is gonna kill me." He continued on for some minutes but kept a steady arm around me the whole time. I would have preferred to sit down, but this was good, too. "You're going back to the keep now."

"I won't argue with you," I said when I could talk in a masculine register. "Didn't find anything here, anyway."

Hobbes stayed in the same vein the entire ride to the Agency. I wanted to smack him by the time we parked, but I felt too miserable. Then, once inside, Claire started in on me and to make it a perfect trifecta, the Official finally got to put in his unwanted opinion of my incompetence. Just to make me suffer as long as possible.

Claire finally asserted her medical muscles and shooed out the riff-raff, leaving us alone. She'd given me more Demerol and I could have slept on that crappy exam chair, no problem, if she had just stopped talking.

"Did you eat anything today?" she asked critically.

"Hobbes bought me coffee and a croissant."

"Oh, just marvelous, is that it?"

"As far as I can remember…no wait, Alex had a basket of fruit in her office. I ate a banana while she was doing her thing on the computer." I felt quite proud of myself for having downed a healthy breakfast.

"Darien." She tapped her foot on the cement floor in an uneven pattern like Morse code. "You need to convalesce. That means staying at home, good meals, lots of fluid. I hardly consider traipsing all over San Diego with Bobby a suitable alternative!"

"Sorry, okay? I just thought if we could get my stuff back right away…" I trailed off. "Maybe it wouldn't cause any problems. Get ol' Charlie off my back."

"He's already promised to change the code on the door and issue new cards. He wasn't very happy about it." She flipped back her hair, bunching it up in both hands before letting it trail over her fingers like finely spun gold silk. "He's right, though, it's a good thing you didn't have a key to the whole building."

I didn't mention that it was really pointless to give me any key to a door with tumbler locks. The front door of the Agency had several types of locks designed to keep out intruders and a notoriously unreliable alarm system, not to mention the occasional junior agent pressed into guard duty. I'd broken in more than once, anyway.

The metal sliding door of the keep would have been a bit more of a challenge, but I'd had a key card until recently.

"Did you quicksilver today?" Claire asked.

"Yes," I answered quietly.

She turned, walking across to the sink to wash her hands. She kept her back to me, but the disapproving ramrod straight spine spoke volumes. I don't know why I felt like I'd let her down, but guilt settled in my belly like a lead weight. I was glad I hadn't eaten much.

"How long were you quicksilvered?" Claire asked, returning with those particular items I hate seeing in her capable hands; blood drawing needle, collection vial and tourniquet. She tied the long piece of plastic around my arm, leaving a jaunty bow just above my left elbow and began probing for a vein. Having that damned gland in my head has certainly improved my knowledge of all things medical.

"Just long enough to get from Alex's office to the street." I tried to hide the wince as she slid the needle in, releasing a flow of red liquid into the vial. Since my right arm was bandaged up past the elbow, the left arm was having even more than it's fair share of pokes.

"All right, well, I think it would be better to wait until tomorrow evening for the counteragent." Claire filled the purple topped tube with my vital fluid, then quickly pulled the needle free, planting a wad of cotton over the tiny hole in my skin. I automatically placed a finger over the cotton ball to hold it in place. It was getting to the point where there was more blood outside me than in. "You need to start taking an iron supplement to prevent anemia," she said, as if reading my thoughts.

"I got the Flintstones vitamins with extra Bettys."

"You're so juvenile," she said, but her tone had softened. "I know it's been a hard day, Darien. Stay in bed tomorrow. Get some rest." She leaned forward and gave me a gentle kiss on the temple. It left a warmth that did more good that the Demerol.

++++++++++++++++++

With the unpredictability of February, the fantastic weather finally departed. It was raw and windy with driving rain ripping at the palm trees.

Hobbes did his nursemaid impression again, going so far as to whip up bowls of oatmeal with cinnamon and butter for breakfast. I guess Claire had given him the Darien needs good nutrition lecture, too.

"Hobbes, you never cease to amaze me." I licked the spoon clean, "Just when I think I've gotten you all figured out, you spring something new."

"Always pays to be mysterious, Fawkes." Bobby laughed. "I should drive you over to the keep for the day."

"No, no. Claire told me to stay in bed. No way am I going out in that rain if I don't have to. I'm staying here."

His paranoid nature in full force, Hobbes looked very unhappy at this. "Fawkes, I'm gonna be runnin' around, talkin' to that kid Allegretto, questioning fences in case Dex already sold the card…I can't do that if you're not safe."

"Hobbes, I got my bat." I produced my genuine Louisville Slugger from under the comforter. "There's a lock on the door…"

"That's no lock, it's a piece of masking tape," he protested.

"And then there's the invisibility thing."

"Think you're so cocky," Hobbes groused.

"Just leave me the remote, the phone and a litre of root beer and I'm copasetic."

"I'll bring over lunch." He wavered, still unconvinced by my arguments.

"Hobbes, Domino's delivers."

"Huh, that's just dough and pepperoni wishin' it was a pizza. Bobby Hobbes knows pizza. I'll bring you a New York style pie." His own brand of cockiness had returned and he started to leave, reminding me twice to lock the door.

I complied, then headed back to bed, my side already killing me. After taking some more painkillers, I crashed, sleeping for the rest of the morning.

The sound of the doorknob rattling woke me and I swung the bat up in preparedness, my heart rate going into triple digits. Hobbes poked his head in, brandishing the pizza box like an offering.

"Fawkes, glad to see you're prepared, but it's only me."

I put down my weapon, reaching for the delicious smelling box. "Where'd you get this, it smells like heaven."

"If heaven were in Brooklyn." He grinned, opening the top. "Uncle Vinnie's secret recipe."

We both plowed in with both fists, finishing off more than half the pizza in under ten minutes. Hobbes had also brought more root beer, but since I'd slept all morning, I hadn't touched the first bottle.

I think pizza and root beer could restore a man's soul, and it was very effective in giving me a more positive look on the whole day. That and the fact that Hobbes had found Nathan Allegretto at the library at U. of S.D. where he was a freshman, and 'persuaded' him to talk.

"That Allegretto was a real piece of work." Hobbes tidied up the pizza remains. "Actin' like he was somebody special."

"Bet you changed his tune." I laughed.

"Better believe it, pal. Nobody messes with Bobby Hobbes." He puffed himself up. "Hauled him down to the nearest precinct just like any other punk kid I could name."

"Did he talk?" I was kind of enjoying hearing about some other punk kid going to jail.

"Pretty hard case, I'll give him that," Hobbes admitted. "Yelling for the family lawyer before I even made it out the door."

"That's what I needed all those years." I laughed, "The family lawyer!"

"Well, got a list o'names to run down this afternoon. Can't be lyin' around sleepin' all morning like some people I know."

"You're just jealous," I called after him as he left. The apartment seemed overly quiet without Bobby's chatter. I wandered around aimlessly, picked up a half read book, then put it back, tried to get comfortable on the couch, but that was impossible and finally ended up back in the bed with the remote in hand.

I thumbed the power button for the TV and surfed the channels. There are about one hundred of them cause I got digital, but nothing was at all diverting. Reruns of old comedies, trashy shows about pregnant teenagers and the hostile boys who knocked them up and Judge Joe Brown sentencing a big fat woman to pay off the IOU to her brother-in-law for the car he'd sold her and she'd already totaled. I'd be kinda pissed if that happened. I really hate the judge shows the most. I'd had way too much personal experience in the hot seat, thank you very much. I was actually just a little bit sympathetic with the fat woman.

There are weeks when I would have given my left foot to have a day off with nothing to do but stay in bed and watch TV. This was not one of them. I wanted to be out helping Hobbes. It was all my fault--I was the one who'd been mugged. I was the one who'd lost the card. If anything bad happened to Hobbes, it'd be on my head.

Shadows lengthened across the room as sun tried valiantly to break through the cloud cover, the wind still banging on the windows so loudly it was giving me a headache. It wasn't until my hand raised to the back of my neck that the origin of the headache dawned on me.

Crap.

The pressure was still bearable, but my skull already felt too tight. Hobbes had promised to be back when he was through making the rounds to take me to the lab for a shot of my own personal drug of choice. If I had to trust myself, as Hobbes had suggested, I estimated I'd be able to last maybe two more hours before all hell broke loose. Just the thought of it gave me the willies.

I looked down at myself. I was still wearing the ripped T-shirt and pajama bottoms I'd put on the night before. Probably wouldn't hurt to shower and change. Look presentable for the ritual injection. Claire had said not to get the stitches wet, so I tried showering with my right arm sticking up, but that hurt and no amount of maneuvering kept the bandage on my left side dry. Oh, well, just one more thing to get yelled at for.

Stepping out of the shower, I unwound the long sopping piece of gauze around my arm. An ugly wound, it was close to seven inches long, the black sutures crawling along the slice like centipede feet. The stitches bisected the ourobros on my wrist, looking for all the world like they were holding the two halves of the snake together. It was strange to still see six red spaces and four green when I could feel the madness crowding out the sanity in my brain. Usually by now, I'd be looking at a red snake with only the head and biting jaws a lovely green.

Little stabs of pain pierced the gland, starting to shred my composure.

Keep it together. Wait it out 'til Hobbes gets here.

I did a much sloppier job of wrapping my arm than Claire had, and started in on the smaller dressing on my side. Outside the wind was howling, rain starting to pelt the side of the building again with loud clatters.

My heart froze in mid beat. Over the rattling windows I could hear a muttered curse from the main room and footfalls. That was not Hobbes. He would have called my name or knocked on the bathroom door.

Persons unknown had snuck in while I was in the shower, the sound of the door drowned out by the noise of the water on the tiled floor.

I was nude and without my baseball bat.

I snagged the pajama bottoms from the floor and pulled them on, all the while letting the quicksliver flow. The familiar coolness relaxed me, even though there was a nasty trade off. The madness would just hit that much sooner.

The bathroom door opened with a slam and a tall, slender man with perfect features and neatly combed hair stuck in his gun. He looked right through me.

"Nobody here."

"He hasn't left all day." A second man, nearly a clone to the first, glanced in.

Boy, I was just thrilled to hear they'd had me staked out. They must have been very good to avoid having Hobbes spot them.

When they'd moved back I slid past, holding my breath. I was in no shape for a long battle, although the closer I got to QSM, the better off I was stamina-wise. While red-eyed, I once beat up two guys and destroyed all the furniture in a house while so sick from the flu that I'd been bedridden for the two days previous.

Claire would kill me if I ripped out my stitches though.

My place isn't that big, and the two goonie boys had already done the once over on my stuff, judging from the mess. The bed linens were twisted up and draped across the foot of the bed, a pile of Cliff Notes and Philosophy magazines decorating the floor. My two unwanted guests were conferring with each other by the time I reached the bed and grabbed up three feet of finely tooled ash.

They were between me and the open door. I was just judging whether I could go around them when Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum both turned, donning slim, elegant sunglasses. Or more correctly, thermal glasses. They could see me just fine.

Crap. I raised the bat, ignoring my various aches and pains, as both bullyboys came towards me. Swinging like Barry Bonds going for his homerun record, I caught Tweedle Dum on the left shoulder, knocking his pistol to the ground. It skittered across the floor, disappearing under the couch.

"Don't move!" Tweedle Dee commanded, focusing his pistol on my invisible midsection. "Show yourself."

That's when the pain blindsided me, ripping through my brain like the Tasmanian Devil. Dark green fire exploded behind the back of my head, dropping me to the floor. Kinda difficult to maintain the quicksilver at a time like that. I held just enough awareness to know I wasn't invisible anymore.

The carpet dive turned out to have an unexpected bonus, cause Dee had squeezed the trigger of his tranquilizer gun, but the dart embedded harmlessly into my pillow.

"Wanna try again? Two outta three?" I grinned, my voice low and sensual. I didn't have to look in a mirror to know my eyes were red like blood. "C'mon guys." I stood, taking a menacing step forward. The Tweedle Twins backed up, their faces suddenly fearful. I could see my scarlet eyes reflected in their glasses, so that there were two sets of QSM Dariens staring back at me.

Outside a crack of thunder shook the house. Then, lightening lit up the room like one of those super trouper spotlights Britney Spears likes. With an audible pop, the electricity went out, plunging the room into nighttime.

Quick as a cheetah, I was across the room, snaking my arm around Dee's shoulders, forcing the tranq gun from his fingers. Grabbing hold of his chin, I snapped his neck with a little jerk. There was no remorse. Not even bothering to turn, I shot out one foot, jamming it into Dum's family jewels. He doubled over, clutching his groin. I let Dee drop, giving Dum a knee to the chest for good measure.

When the madness comes on, it's as if there's no good. Everything is Baaad, and I like it that way. A microscopic portion of sane Darien still exists, crouching tightly in the back on my mind, hiding. He can't exert any real influence most of the time and QSM Darien rules. It's scary as hell.

Jagged lightening caught my attention. I watched with fascination through the window, my reflection appearing to be continuously pierced by lightening strikes. Since sane Darien had once been struck by lightening, this seemed cosmically significant. Pure electricity sizzled with dangerous life across the rain-lashed sky. The reason for the power outage was immediately apparent, a live wire dangled from the nearest telephone pole, sparking like a Fourth of July child's toy. Thunder boomed so loudly the noise reverberated on my eardrums.

The raw power of nature called to the primal lust in the gland, igniting a frightening passion. I had to get that wire, hold the deadly electricity, bend it to my will. I could control destinies with that kind of power.

I smashed my hand flat on the plate glass window, ignoring the splintered shards that mingled with the cold rain pouring in and climbed up onto the sill.

"Fawkes, don't!" Hobbes' voice was a distant noise, but the sound of gunfire brought me up.

"Shooting at me, Robert?" I caressed his name, the undercurrent of evil making sane Darien sick. QSM Darien wanted to kill Hobbes.

"No, actually." Hobbes spoke slowly, carefully. He'd dealt with QSM Darien before. "Shot him." He waved the gun at Dum, who was slobbering on the floor, holding his arm to his chest. He must have found the other gun, cause it lay only a few feet away, just outside the ring of light from Hobbes' flashlight.

Aiming the flashlight at me, Hobbes said, "your hand is bleeding, Fawkes, he shoot you?" I couldn't see the other man anymore, the light was too bright and the rest of the room too dark.

"No, Hobbes, but not for lack of trying. Brought a tranq gun." I chuckled, calm and detached, raising my hand to shield my eyes from his light. "Nobody gets the better of me, huh? I'm the man."

"You're the man, Fawkes." He was coming closer, the beam of light like a solid wall sliding forward, but I still couldn't see Hobbes' face. "But you wanna come outta that window? It's kinda freakin' me out. And the rain's comin' in."

"Freakin' you out, Hobbesy? But that's exactly what I want, huh?" I stepped down, moving to the left. Hobbes was getting way too close.

Behind him, Dum was up, his body just a blur in the dark room. With a growl, I pounced, wrapping my hand around his wounded arm. Blood slicked my fingers and he slipped free.

A wavering light swung wildly around the room, briefly illuminating Dum escaping out the door. That hadn't been lightening, there'd been no accompanying thunder. Whipping around I had just enough time to see Hobbes' flashlight coming down on my head before everything exploded.

 

++++++++++++

 

If the madness is bad, the 'coming down' is a hangover of gargantuan proportions. The counteragent is like liquid tranquility and convulsing pain all rolled into one. Added to that, I had one hell of a headache from the crack on my head, and my hand throbbed again. In fact, it felt a lot like Doctor Claire was stitching me up again.

"Nearly sliced off a finger." Hobbes' voice was overly loud. He sounded nervous, and even with my eyes closed, I could tell he was bobbing up and down in place.

"Bobbin' Bobby," I muttered, giggling. I must be back on the Demerol.

"Huh?" He stopped his jittering abruptly.

"Darien, are you awake?" Claire put her sweet, cool hand on the lump rising out of my forehead.

"I think so." I opened my eyes, squinting. We were in the keep. My right hand was splayed out on a blue covered tray, centered in the white light of a small exam lamp.  
Claire was obviously in the middle of suturing my skin again. "What happened this time?"  
"Just about sliced off your finger." Bobby grimaced.

"Not quite," Claire said dryly, going back to her petitpoint. "But your hand has quite a nasty gash across the palm."

"I broke the window." I tried to flex my fingers, but I was numb from the wrist down with local anesthesia Claire had used. Miniature stitches now marched from my pinkie to the middle finger. "Crap." I barely remembered smashing the glass. There hadn't been any pain, any knowledge of injury. "Did I kill…?"

"Yah." Bobby had the grace to sound distressed. And I knew without being told, he was distressed for me not for the corpse.

"Damn." My throat was tight enough to make swallowing hurt.

"Fawkes, they woulda grabbed you, or worse-tried to get the gland out." Which would kill me, but he didn't say that. "They were from Chrysalis."

"How'd you know?"

"ID card on the dead guy." He grinned briefly, the laugh lines around his eyes crinkling with delight. "Always a good idea to carry ID."

"I'll remember that," I answered with a smirk.

"Woulda been a lot o'help that time you had amnesia," Hobbes snarked.

That was the result of being struck by lightening. I was glad it hadn't happened this time when I was already QSM.

"Any word on my ID?"

"Oh, yah, Dex did sell yours to Mickey the Rat."

"What a colorful name." Claire swathed my hand in a couple yards of gauze, winding it around my fingers then up my arm like on of those old fashioned gloves ladies used to wear to the opera. "And next time, Darien, let me change your dressing."

I knew she'd be after me for that. "So, didja get the key card back?" I asked, examining my new improved bandage with a sigh.

"Mickey said he only deals in fake ID's and he was jumpin' around like a bunny for gettin' a Fed ID. He threw the blank card out." Bobby tossed the Health and Human services badge and picture ID into my good hand.

"The Official had the lock changed already anyway." Claire put in. "But he's a bit reticent to hand out replacement cards."

Wonderful. "You mean he wants me to knock politely every time I need a shot?" I squeaked, unintentionally loudly. "Claire, I need the monitor back!"

"Darien, you actually judged it pretty accurately. If Bobby had gotten there ahead of the Chrysalis agents, there wouldn't have been any problems." Claire rubbed my back, making small circles below my neck.

"I'll tell you, my friend, none of that had anything to do with all this." Bobby swung an expansive hand at the door.

"All what?" Usually I get what he's talking about, but either he was more obtuse than usual or it was just cause I was on Demerol.

"Chrysalis," he repeated as if I were four.

This international amalgamation of evil businessmen and genetically manipulated Dr. Mengele wanna-bes were intent on getting the original research on the gland to create an army of invisible assassins. They already had spawned a generation of special children, artificially inseminating unsuspecting woman, one of whom was our own five star-rated agent Alex Monroe. We still hadn't quite figured out exactly what made those babies so special.

"Bobby, those jerks are always tryin' to come after me," I said wearily. The tribal drums in my head were making it too difficult to concentrate.

"Well, the one that was outside your building waitin' in the getaway car kinda bowed under the ol' Bobby Hobbes interrogation technique."

"The oo-ol' Bobby Hobbes interrogation technique," I parroted with a grin. "You knew they were in my apartment before you got there."

"I did."

"So what did your new pal say?"

"Apparently that kid Allegretto, he wasn't lyin'. He really is a big shot…connected into the family, so to speak.

"Stark's?" I asked, knowing he didn't mean the Mafia. Jarod Stark was the titular head of Chrysalis, a little lizard of a man, always too smooth, too slick, too perfect.

"Remember Eleanor?"

"His wife." Claire nodded.

We'd helped the woman escape into witness protection never-never land along with the baby that Alex had carried to term as a surrogate mother.

"She was an Allegretto. The kid's her nephew."

"Must be a disappointment to Stark." I grinned broadly. "Muggin' people at ATM's probably isn't what the genetic engineers who brewed him up in a test tube had in mind."

"Well, I think that's not your concern, Darien." Claire handed me an ice pack for the lump on my head.

"Didja have t'hit me so hard?" I complained to Hobbes, sitting up to get the ice pack into perfect placement over the bump. For a second, the room swam and Claire placed a protective hand on my shoulder.

"You're blaming me?" Hobbes retorted.

"Darien, you need to be more careful. You've had even more blood loss and now a concussion on top of it," Claire fussed, pressing a little too hard on my lump.

"Oww. Well, whose fault is that?" I whined, cause I felt like crap and just wanted to go back to bed with my trusty remote. Heck, even Judge Joe Brown is looking pretty good right now, and I hate judge shows.

"Hey, pally, sometimes Bobby Hobbes has to improvise."

"Then improvise on somebody else's head next time!" I hollered at him. We're used to sniping like a couple of first graders on the playground. It settles the air, pulling us back into the norm, whatever that might be.

The keep doors slid open, our so called leader entering the lab like Captain Kirk onto the Enterprise Bridge when he has to mediate in some intergalactic war council, and just behind him was Eberts, who maybe could be Scotty, under certain circumstances. I could just imagine him yelling, "We can' take much more o'this, sir!" when the monthly expense accounts come in.

"I can only do so much when you're red-eye, my friend. Quick work prevents future sorrows," Bobby pontificated, raising his eyebrows.

"That is so lame, it isn't even a real Chinese proverb."

"Boys!" The Official roared. "None of that on company time!"

"I thought this was an agency, not a company," I remarked to my partner.

"Interesting conundrum, Fawkesy." Hobbes frowned, "Is it just semantics or is there more to it?"

"When is an agency not a company?" I continued, "Or do you have to be incorporated to be a…"

"Oh, just stop!" Claire groaned, but she looked like she was about to giggle.

"Senator Markov's bonus money has come through," Eberts spoke up.

"Hallelujah." Hobbes did a little happy dance.

"Don't start planning any large purchases, Agent Hobbes," Charlie Borden said. He has this way of saying everything in a ponderous tone, even thought it's obvious he's secretly happy to have to spring the bad news.

"What did you say?"

"The annual budget did not take into account having to rekey an electronically controlled door." Eberts produced a ledger, pointing out various numbers that probably made sense only to him. Why did he even keep it on paper? I thought the guy was a computer whiz. "Factoring in having to re-issue key cards to everyone in the Agency…" he enunciated the word, glaring at Hobbes, "And the cost of having to find laborers with the proper security clearance, the monies that the Senator promised were needed just to…"

"Shut up, Eberts." Hobbes turned to stare at the Official, his whole body vibrating with rage. "You have promised me a pay raise for over two years. Fawkes here can attest to the fact that I have worked my tail off for you, without decent living expenses….my house was destroyed, I had to get a new one, that van only runs cause I got the Rabbi prayin' for her, my credit cards have credit cards and now you promise me a fuckin' bonus and you pull it back like some backyard Indian giver. Well, pal, that's about the last you're gonna see of Bobby Hobbes! I quit!"

"Hobbes!" I cried, making a grab for his arm, but he turned on his heel, stalking towards the 'electronically controlled door'. I felt like crap, no, worse than crap, like something below a worm in a garbage dump. It's all my fault that Hobbes didn't get his money.

Sure, I woulda liked a bonus, but I'd lived just above poverty level practically my whole life, what was a few more years? Bobby deserved his bonus, at least. He'd pulled me out of more jams than anybody else in my whole life. The first time I'd ever met him, when the gland was new in my head and my brother had just died, Hobbes had asked if the Official had sent me with his raise. Well, now I was determined to get it for him.

"Hobbes! There's no other agency that would take you," Borden warned ominously, "You're a pariah."

"Yah?" Hobbes growled, already halfway out the door, "Good, then I won’t be expected to associate with the likes of you." He stalked out with a snarl.

"Bobby!" I scrambled off the exam table, running after him, but Bobby had up a full head of steam and he was damned fast. Burning with righteous anger, he was going at warp speed. I, unfortunately, was doped up, bandaged up and had totally forgotten that I only wearing sweatpants.

"Darien! You can't go out there like that!" Claire took off after me, her heels clattering loudly in the halls.

My side hurt worse after only running for a few minutes, but I didn't let that deter me. Up ahead, past the turning, I could hear Hobbes order one of the agents away from the front doors, and I sped up, left hand pressing on the bandage over my ribs.

"Hobbes!" I yelled, running around a corner in time to see him disappear into the rain-washed street.

"Darien!" Claire was gaining on me, even in heels.

The Official was right on her tail, with Eberts bringing up the rear. We probably looked like some wacky chase scene in that horrible flick with everyone haring after a treasure map, but I was feeling far from wacky. I was desperate. The Agency was bad enough with Hobbes' friendship at my back to cushion me on the rough days. There was no way I was gonna survive without Bobby Hobbes around.

I'd also forgotten it was still raining, hard. I plowed past the two door monitors, skidding barefoot onto the slick, icy wet pavement. "Hobbes, stop, man!" I called to him just as he jerked open the driver's side door on the van. He looked vulnerable and alone with his bald head shining in the overhead street lights. Rain had already drenched his clothes. I, luckily, had far less on to get wet.

"Darien, get back inside, you'll catch your death!" Claire declared, holding a hand over her head like that was going to keep the rain off.

"Fawkes, leave me alone right now." Hobbes stood looking at me, caught in the circle of the street light before climbing into the van and driving off.

"You bastards!" I stormed at Borden and Eberts. "You just let go the best agent this piss poor excuse for a spy shop'll ever have."

"Fawkes, son, calm down and come inside." The Fat Man urged, never having come all the way out into the wet. "When Hobbes calms down, he'll come crawling back here. Always does and maybe we can negotiate some terms."

"Negotiate terms, my ass." I stabbed a finger into his soft belly, "You jerk him around like he's some kinda puppet. Well, he's not, and neither am I. And I'm sure as hell not your son."

"No, you're Mason Fawkes' son, and I expect you to act like the agent we've trained you to be," Borden said coldly.

"You had nothing to do with it," I answered in the same tone. "You don't even know what Hobbes came here to tell you, do you? Did he tell you what he learned about Chrysalis?"

"Darien, let's go back to the lab and get you into some clean clothes. I'll have to change your bandages again, they're all wet." Claire was speaking softly, like she does when I'm close to quicksilver madness, but this wasn't the gland's effects on me, for once.

"If you have information, you are obliged as my employee to spill it." The Official followed us back to the keep, trying to side step the huge puddles I was leaving on the floor.

"Since Hobbes is no longer here, I can't tell you much of anything," I said carefully, reining in my anger at him, "We'll both have to wait til hell freezes over, cause I don't expect he'll come crawling back." With that, I palmed the door control, closing it in his face.

"It'll do neither of you any good to anger him further," Claire said softly, fetching more bandages and a pair of scrubs out of her linen closet.

"Claire, I don't know what to do next." I dropped wearily onto the exam table, my head pounding like two pile drivers digging to China.

"Give Bobby some space." She handed me the dry clothes. "Then go talk to him, alone."

 

++++++++++++++++

Knowing Hobbes was stubborn enough not to let me in if I just showed up at the front door, I had to resort to another plan of attack. Waiting until morning, I bought a bagel and double chocolate espresso, eating them in the parking lot of the mall near Hobbes' house. Apparently Hobbes was making good on his threat of quitting, It was already past when he usually would have been in to the agency, but when I'd cruised past his condo near the waterfront, Golda was still in the driveway. I was willing to wait for him to come to me, so to speak.

Sure enough, there he went, jogging slowly past the coffee shop like he didn't really plan to go in there. Jogged about a block to the left, swung around a small pocket sized playground at the end of the road, then pounded back with a burst of power. Bobby could go fast when he wanted to, I'd been reminded last night, and it looked like he was giving it that last burst of power to earn his reward--the caffeine.

While Hobbes was buying his selection, I drove back to his street, parking one block off and walked back up the tree-lined road to his condo. I still wasn't quite up to jogging yet. Claire would have probably said I wasn't up to a stake-out yet, but we often had differing opinions. She's the one who told me to come, anyway.

Quicksilvering the minute I passed a parked SUV big enough to hide the 'show' from any passers by, I finished the stroll to Hobbes' condo invisible.

I like to think I'm pretty sneaky, that when I'm see-thru no one can hear me or sense me. I was wrong. Hobbes jogged slowly up the front path to his door, fishing keys out of his pocket with one hand. I was standing still as a statue just to the left of the door, ready to slide silently in once he'd opened up.

"Fawkes, show yourself or I'm gonna whup your invisible ass." Hobbes swung a hand and unerringly hit me on the aforementioned target.

I let the quicksilver flake off like silvery snowflakes, rubbing my flank. "How'd you do that?"

"Practice," he said dryly, "Glad to see you bought your own coffee cause you won't be sharin' mine."

"You saw me the whole time?" I whined.

He unlocked the three deadbolts on the door, making a courtly gesture to usher me inside. "Got eyes in the back of my head, my friend. I'm a trained agent, not some punk felon with a gland in his head." The words were boasting, but there was humor and friendship in his voice.

"You aren't by any chance my mom? Cause she used to say she had eyes in the back of her head, too." I had finished my coffee waiting for him and pitched it into the kitchen garbage about ten feet away. It teetered on the edge, then fell in. "Two points for Fawkes!"

"Sometimes I pity your mom." Hobbes opened his own pastry bag, extracting a bagel and taking a bite.

"Walked all the way to Noah's this time?" I teased lightly, then sobered. "Hobbes. I'm really sorry about the bonus," I said honestly, sitting stiffly on the long leather couch. I felt like an old man, my whole body ached.

"Aw, kid, it's gotten to the point where I didn't even believe the money was real." Hobbes sighed, sipping his brew, leaning against the back of the couch. "It's just the principle of the thing. Integrity. Fat Man shouldn't promise what he doesn't intend to hand out."  
"Amen." I nodded, "You deserved the money, though."

"Glad somebody thinks so. How's your head?" Bobby examined my face critically, touching a gentle finger to the puffiness around my left eye. The forehead lump of last night had diminished, the swelling and bruising settling in the lowest depression, the bony ridge under my eye. "Gave you quite a shiner."

"Beating up on your partner," I teased, but there was a lump in my throat that wouldn't leave. "Did you mean it? About quitting?"

"Yes. No. What else am I gonna do? Gotta keep you outta trouble, can't sit around the house all day long." He shrugged, but sounded depressed.

"We never did find Dex," I pointed out. And the whole thing about Chrysalis…"

"You really want to get mixed up with them again?"

"Were we ever untangled in the first place?" I ticked off the fact on my fingers. "Shasta gets kidnapped, we rescue her, I get mugged-by her best friend's boyfriend and the nephew of one of our enemies. You think Chrysalis leads back to Markov?"

"That our esteemed senator is playing footsy with an international terrorist?" Hobbes sounded much more interested.

"What's that old saying? Follow the money?"

"I always like _'Cherchez la femme_ ' myself," Hobbes said with a Groucho Marx leer, "But that one's good, too."

"Where do we start?"

"Slush funds, campaign contributions, misdirected allocations…" Hobbes gestured with the bagel before finishing it off.

"Eberts?"

"That's what I'm sayin'."

"Boy, will he be pissed to see you back in the building." I grinned.

"I live to torment the man." Hobbes raised a hand, palm up and I high-fived him.

"Y'know, I been meaning to talk to you about that…"

++++++++++++++++++++

So as not to invoke considerable hue and cry, I quicksilvered both of us before we walked into the Harding building. We passed right by two of our own agents, just far enough away to prevent that 'opening the refrigerator chill' that Bobby says I give off when see-thru. As I had hoped, Eberts was in the little closet of an office where he staples, folds and hole punches, with his nose practically pressed to the screen of his HP monitor.

"Eberts?" I let the QS flake off, lounging in the doorway. Behind me, Hobbes had maybe another thirty seconds before he was visible, too. I let both of us in, closing the door behind us. "Mind if I come in?"

"No, Agent Fawkes." Eberts had a confused, concerned look on his Pillsbury doughboy face, " However, I doubt that the Official would sanction you parading around in the halls using up more than your usual allotment of quicksilver."

"What is my official allotment of quicksilver, anyway? Do you have an exact amount? Cause I'd really like to know. Hate to get on the Fat Man's bad side." I leaned over his computer, aware of Hobbes' return to the land of visibility just behind me.

"Robert!" Eberts squeaked. "You gave me a scare…"

"Eberts," Hobbes said in that really irritating way of his. "We need alittle help from my main computer hacker."

"I thought you were going to Miss Monroe for all your computer needs now?" Eberts looked up doubtfully, clasping his hands in his lap.

"She's got her uses, but you're the man." I gave the little sycophant a comradely slap on the shoulder which nearly sent him head first into the keyboard and gestured with my bandaged hand. "We need a little of what you do best, Albert. Hacking into government files--a little snooping into Senator Markov's personal financial activities."

"Oh." Eberts straightened with a nod. He was in his element now, he knew all the tricks to get secret, encrypted information to open up to his questing. Not even bothering to ask any more questions, he started typing, fingers flying over the keyboard with a prowess that would have sent my tenth grade old maid typing teacher Mrs. Browntree into orgasms.

I sat down. The Tylenol with codeine I'd taken with breakfast wasn't holding me very long and I was hurting, but didn't want Hobbes to know. He'd leave me handcuffed to the Keeper's torture chair in a heartbeat if he thought I was in pain. It was worth it, though, to see his dark eyes light up as he read the screen over Eberts' shoulder. Whatever information they'd retrieved was making both of them positively gleeful, and I decided I'd like to get in on the fun.

"Like to share with the class, guys?" I stood carefully, pressing my elbow against my side because any stretching movement along my ribs was like reliving the knife's entry over again.

"It's all here, Fawksie." I knew if he was using a nickname for me, he was in a better mood. Hobbes rubbed his hands together, then pointed out various numbers with a forefinger. "Illegal campaign contributions, monetary gifts that I bet ol' Boris didn't report to the IRS, or his constituents and lovely slush fund stuff…and guess who his numba one backer is?"

"Do I win a prize if I say Stark? Cause his nephew stole my lottery money." I grinned. "And I wouldn't mind getting' it back."

"Got it in one." Hobbes grinned at me over Eberts' balding head.

"I would be remiss if I didn't remind you both that this information is highly confidential and we obtained it in an illegal fashion…"

"Well, duh, Ebs, what about it?" I asked, since I knew it was expected of me.

"You have a responsibility as voting citizens of our great nation to report any illegal activities to the proper authorities so that Senator Markov can be dealt with appropriately," Eberts finished.

"I dunno--do I count as a voting citizen?" I asked rhetorically, "Cause I think I lost that right about three prison sentences ago."

"You can't vote in prison, but I think you can when you get out." Bobby argued amiably. "You mean you didn't vote?"

"Think I'd vote for that moron in the White House?"

"Fawkes, it is the constitutionally given right of every American adult to vote his or her own conscience in every election."

"Gee, Bobby, thinking of giving up all this and teaching high school civics classes?"

"Gentlemen." Eberts cleared his throat noisily.

"Eberts," Hobbes drawled. "We are the proper authorities, don't you remember? We can haul his ass in anytime we please."

"Well, maybe not," I countered, "He went to Switzerland, last I heard and they're a neutral country, if I remember correctly. Either of you know if we have an extradition treaty with them?"

"Switzerland is a neutral country, according to the Geneva Convention," Eberts supplied helpfully.

"Damn." Hobbes crossed his arms, pacing around the desk in the tiny office. That meant pushing past me and Eberts to complete his circumnavigation of the room. I sucked in a stifled breath when he connected with my arm and Bobby froze in contrition."Aw, Fawkes, I'm sorry! Y'okay? Siddown. You want I should call the Keep?"

"No, Hobbes." I gritted my teeth, dropping into the chair he'd shoved under my butt, not wanting the sympathy right then. "Just keep working out whatever plan was swirling around in that rat's maze you call your brain."

"Uh-huh, think you can deflect concern with sarcasm?" Hobbes pointed a probing finger. "Bobby Hobbes knows you better than that. You need another day in bed while the rest of us voting citizens go after the Senator."

"Don't shut me out, Hobbes. This is my fight, too," I retorted. "With Allegretto hopefully still behind bars, our only lead is Dex."

"Yeah, so?" He scrubbed a hand over his balding pate, looking at me quizzically.

"Hobbes, do you know where the Goth hang outs are?"

"Oooh, like the Bronze on Buffy the Vampire Slayer?" Eberts crowed, "I could…"

"Shut up, Eberts," we both chorused.

"I'm sure I could ferret out one or two." Hobbes puffed out his chest.

"Yah, but you don't exactly have the right…coloring…" I began lamely.

"I own black, Fawkes, Bobby Hobbes knows how to blend."

"Alucard's Lair is near the dock area, on that little blind alley, Castle," Eberts spoke up, a satisfied smile on his smug round face.

"Appropriate, I guess." I stared at him, "And you know this because?"

""Friends in the gaming field." Eberts bent over his keyboard again, hitting the key to print out the information we needed. "Tell Fetzlick that Al sent you."

"Fetzlick?" Hobbes echoed.

+++++++++++++++++++

"You're looking especially fetching tonight, Mr. Hobbes." I approved of his black turtleneck, jeans and black ankle boots.

"Thanks, Eddie Haskell, where's the Beav?" Hobbes circled around me, taking in the vintage Black Sabbath tee, black jeans and the piece de la resistance, a black velvet duster coat given to me by a former girlfriend during one of my more depressive years. I'd never gone all out Goth, but there was a time when I wore black whether or not I was pulling a job at night. "You look like a cross between Garth and a vampire. What's with the sling?"

Claire had dug out a long, black silk scarf and told me to wear it. I'd knotted it around my neck, but the weight of my arm was already giving me a backache. She'd also given me a lecture on running myself into the ground when I was already compromised. I'd promised not to use the gland more than a few minutes, and to make it an early evening, if at all possible.

I'd briefly considered inviting Claire along, since I'd ruined the last time I'd tried to pair Bobby and her together, but tailing a knifing suspect in a Goth club didn't seem quite the right atmosphere for the potential second date. Maybe another time…

"Claire thinks it'll keep me out of trouble. She said she's tired of stitching me up every other day."

"No shit," Hobbes agreed. "Get in the van, let's get this over with. No need hangin' out at vampire central all night long."

Alucard's Lair was housed in an anonymous brick warehouse near the wharf. The sign was so tiny and the alley so dark I would never had seen it except that Eberts had given very thorough directions. Who'd have pegged him for a closet Goth?

We knocked on the unimpressive gray door, which opened when I still had my knuckles up in the air. I hastily dropped my hand so it didn't look like I was planning to hit the bouncer on the forehead, and said, "We're looking for Fetzlick. We're friends of Al's."

The guy could have doubled as a mannequin. His face was powdered gray/white, with dark eyeliner around his eyes to accentuate the pallor. He wore, what else—black-- and even when he spoke, his face moved so little I began to wonder if he was just a ventriloquist's dummy and there was some geek with the ability to throw his voice hidden behind the dark velvet drapes.

"Fetzlick will be here later. There's a five dollar cover charge, " he intoned without inflection.

"Geeze--just to get in?" Hobbes complained, but forked over a green portrait of Alexander Hamilton for both of us.

The department store mannequin stepped aside and parted the curtain with one hand. I took a flight of narrow stairs carefully, because it was as dark as a moonless night in the room. From the size of the warehouse, it had to be a large, high ceilinged room, but I had to take that on faith since I couldn't make out the walls or ceiling in the gloom. Small tables seating shadowy figures dressed entirely in one color were crammed into one end, facing a stage. The featured band was a quintet of really loud heavy metal enthusiasts abusing the only three chords they knew with the aid of an antiquated sound system. Or maybe they meant to have frequent bursts of feedback accompany their music.

"What is that?" Hobbes shouted in the general vacinity of my ear.

 _"Stairway to Heaven,_ " I identified the song with some difficulty, letting my eyes adjust to the dark. Each table was equipped with a tiny flickering candle, which provided the only light source. I could only guess how the bartenders mixed drinks--by feel?

"Not in my universe," he snorted in disgust. "How're we gonna find this Dex?"

"Look for a tall guy. My height," I specified, "Or Brit--long braids, gorgeous eyes."

"You noticed his eyes?" Hobbes stared at me, his own eyes like two malted milk balls, dark and chocolatey.

"I said Brit's eyes!" I enunciated loudly into his ear.

We split, each taking one side of the room. I found my way to the bar like a blind man, jarring against half seen bodies more than once. Luckily, with the sling on, my Frankenstein stitched arm was semi-protected, and if I hugged it against my chest, didn't hurt half as much as when Hobbes had brushed past me in Eberts' office. Nonetheless, I was glad to slide onto a barstool and order a shot of taquila. I figured I'd earned it.

"New here?" the bartender asked blandly. He had piercings through both eyebrows, one under his lower lip and one through the bridge of his nose that looked so seriously painful I cringed inwardly.

"Yah, I met Dex Ryan the other day." I tossed back the liqueur. Letting the sharp burn dull the edges on all my aches. "He said this place was there, man. He here?"

"Saw his lady a while ago," the 'tender said cautiously.

"Brit." I smiled, going for non-threatening.

Either I'd developed the senses of a cat or my eyes were adjusting to the extremely low light, because I glimpsed Hobbes threading his way between the tables when one of the candles reflected off his bald scalp.

"Spotted our friend at eleven o'clock." Hobbes said as softly as possible. Igor and the crypt kickers had finished murdering some of the finer works by Morrissey and retired from the stage. There was a brief period of blessed silence before a Cher-as-a-corpse look-alike came up to sensuously murmur into the mike. Her unintelligible lyrics bore no relation to the atonal sitar and electric guitar that backed her but the decibel level in the room had decreased considerably. Apparently her act was something of an unexpected aphrodisiac because quite a few couples began to neck after her set started. And I do mean neck--I could see a serious hickey forming on the girl at the nearest table.

"You found him? I'll take your word for it." I tried catching sight of Dex but it was virtually impossible unless he moved. Dark hair and black clothes merged into the shadows. Just as I'd given up, the candle light at a table next to the stage gleamed in gold bracelets wound up an arm, and I could just recognize Brit's pretty profile for a moment.

"Okay, what do you suggest, Kemosobe?"

"Hey, I'm the Lone Ranger," Hobbes complained.

"No mask," I pointed out.

"Left it back at the ranch." He tossed back a drink he'd ordered, and swiped a hand across his mouth. "Me thinks we should go roust 'em." We outlined a plan before I slipped away.

I ducked behind a large free standing cardboard lobby card for Bela Legosi's Dracula to redress myself in my invisibility suit. Ever since I'd read Harry Potter, I'd wished for an invisibility cloak like he had. Handy, portable, but without the trouble of a gland permanently implanted in my head and the threat of madness. Ah, well, fiction is often better than real life.

Hobbes had already melted into the darkness to take his post near the front staircase. I skirted the stage where Dead Cher was still crooning tonelessly into the mike, her heavy sighs of ennui echoing around the cavernous chamber.

I laid my cold, invisible hand heavily on Dex's shoulder, causing him to jerk upright with fear.

"Scared ya, didn't I?" I grinned, resuming my visible form.

"What'd you do? Put ice down my back?" he barked, his hands feeling frantically for a wet place without success.

"He was invisible," Brit said in awe. "Just like Shasta said." Her incredable eyes were tracking my every move as if she could catch me fading out.

"That's impossible." Des looked angrily at me, and I remembered with a start how fast he could be with a knife. I took a discrete step backwards, ending up with my back against a pillar. "What are you doing here, Fawkes?"

"Looking for you--and hey, I found you. Lucky me." I smiled with nasty intent.

"Look, you got nuthin' on me," he said roughly. Dex had the street talk of a kid who'd grown up on the east Coast, Boston or New York, maybe. I'm not too good with accents.

"I think you'll want to walk out and talk with me and my partner," I said reasonably.

"You gonna make me?" he sneered.

"Hobbes has a gun. I have a video of you knifing me." Even when I said that, it sounded lame. Dummy, you just told him you weren't armed. "And your buddy's already in the slammer, probably singing a nice jailhouse song."

"Don't mean nuthin' to me."

"How bout picking up Miss Brit here for drinking underage." I sampled her drink. Rum and coca cola, "And maybe accessory after the fact for the assault on me."

"Can he do that?" she squeaked, her café au lait skin more skimmed milk color than coffee. "My dad'll kill me!"

I clamped my left hand around Dex's skinny but muscled arm and jerked him up out of his chair, ignoring the complaints from my ribcage, and pushed him roughly towards the exit. Pretty Brit tripped behind us, trying to grab at her boyfriend's hand.

"Come this way," Hobbes growled at Dex, taking over guard duty from me.

It was just as well, I was getting short of breath, and panting hurt like hell with a healing chest wound.

We escaped the gloom of Alucard's Lair, coming out into the alley which seemed inordinately brighter than the club due to a distant street light almost a block away.

"Darien…" Brit had grabbed my hand when she couldn't reach Dex's, and I just managed not to give into girly squeaks of pain when she clamped down on fresh palm stitches. "He didn't mean to, I mean he doesn't usually do this kind of thing…" she trailed off uncertainly.

"What, you mean rob people or knife them? Cause to me, he seemed pretty experienced at both." I rescued my throbbing hand, glancing over to Hobbes who was manhandling the suspect into the van.

"He told me it was the first time, All the blood scared him," Brit answered stubbornly, but her lower lip was quivering.

I hate when that happens. I mean, what man can maintain any kind of composure when a gorgeous girl looks up at him with glinting dark eyes and a quivering lip? Not me, that's for certain.

"Listen, Brit, you're a smart girl, I've seen your homework--in calculus no less--how can you believe everything that smuck tells you?"

"You wouldn't understand." She turned, following the other two to the van, her black silky skirt clinging to her shape.

Okay, Fawkes, rein yourself in, boy. She's a teenager. I tried doing mental calculus, but that had never worked before. Probably would work better if I’d spent more time in the class and less time perfecting my B and E skills in the tenth grade.

I joined the rest of them in the back of Golda. Hobbes had handcuffed Dex and pushed him down so he was kneeling on an old tarp covering the metal floor of the van. Brit climbed in, sitting cross-legged near her boyfriend so that the split in her skirt revealed lacy patterned tights. I closed the sliding door of the van so nobody could hear our little debriefing.

"Okay, Ryan, we want some straight answers and we want 'em now." Hobbes was in his element, full bad cop persona in place. I'd have been scared to death of him if I didn't know he was acting.

"I told Skinny I don't know nuthin' about nuthin'," Dex spat.

"Jersey, huh?" Hobbes obviously guessed his birthplace correctly, because the guy lost his tough face for half a second, but he glanced over at Brit and sneered back at Hobbes.

"You deaf, or sumthin? I don't know…"

"Stop with the Sergeant Shultz impression, Jersey." Hobbes took out his piece, aiming directly at Dex's bent knees, "Cause it's makin' my trigger finger itch. I have a very low opinion of people who knife my partner, and I may just have to extract some justice the old fashioned way."

"Oh, God!" Brit wailed, clutching at Ryan's arm.

"The Senator," he said tersely.

"What?" I interjected.

"Dex, don't!" Brit pleaded. "My dad can get you a lawyer." I truly doubted it. If her father didn't know she was clubbing and drinking underage, he would hardly be one to have the family lawyer defending her no-account boyfriend.

"The Senator told us to follow you," he said finally, his thin, handsome face marred by a hint of cruelty and coldness.

"Why?" Hobbes persisted.

"Cause you royally messed up his plans, man."

"In what way?"

It was like getting hit by lightening, and after all, I should know, but all of a sudden half a dozen facts fit together like a jigsaw puzzle and I saw the whole picture clearly. "The Senator had his daughter kidnapped, didn't he?"

"Oh, my God!" Brit's astonishment wasn't faked. She looked close to collapse. "I was crying! I was so worried about her! How could…? " She turned on her boyfriend, shock replaced by white hot anger. "You knew?"

"He's blowing smoke, Bree, it's all a crock o'shit," Dex blustered.

"Nah, I think Fawkes hit the nail on the head, didn't he?" Hobbes grinned, giving me a high five. "Way to go, partner. "

"It was all too easy--Baldwin was too stupid to have pulled off a caper like that-Shasta wasn't even restrained or anything. We found her in the first place we looked, and Baldwin never even noticed the rescue," I surmised. "So what exactly was the point of that little exercise?"

"I want a lawyer," Dex balked.

"Too bad." Hobbes shoved the barrel of the gun up against Ryan's kneecap. "We ain't like the local police, y'know."

"Fed brutality." Dex tried to move away from the weapon pressing into his black jeans, but Hobbes kept a firm hold on him. Brit, on the other hand, had let go of his arm, backing away with a repulsed expression.

"We fouled the kidnapping, but the Senator acted all the relieved parent and then sent you after me that night?" I asked, sitting down against the wall of the van, grateful for something solid behind me. It felt like the earth was constantly shifting under me. Getting hit by lightening will do that to you.

"I can't believe it!" Brit wailed, starting to cry. "You told me you didn't do things like this! And Nathan, too?"

"Keep talkin', Jersey," Hobbes commanded with a little persuasion from his Glock.

"Listen. I didn't have anything to do with Shasta. She's a good kid, I like her. Markov paid off his chauffeur to do the deed--but you guys caught on too quickly." Dex looked over at Brit the whole time he spoke and I was surprised to realize the jerk must really have a heart buried under all that attitude and black leather. He seemed genuinely unhappy to have Brit hear all these things. "So her shit-for-brains cousin said we should make you guys look bad, and the Senator liked the idea."

"Lemme get this straight, you mean Allegretto?" Hobbes asked, getting a nod from Brit in return. " Allegretto is related to Markov." Hobbes whistled long and low, "Talk about your connections--everything leads back to Stark."

"This keeps getting better and better." I groaned.

"Nathan told me…" Brit rubbed her eyes, smearing her dark eye shadow, glancing nervously over at Dex. "His Dad was helping Mr. Markov get re-elected."

"Sooo, Stark helps out one brother-in-law by financing the other brother-in-law's campaign, I'll wager." Hobbes smiled, "but there's something stinky about the money, so it needs a little cleaning before it's useful."

"He plans a phony kidnapping so he'd have to 'pay' off Shasta's captors, who then would deposit the money in some off-shore account for a small price." I leaned over to Dex. "Does any of this sound familiar?"

"Senator said your crappy little agency would never figure it out," he answered glumly, "That he had to have the feds involved to make it look legit, but not anybody who could solve it before he paid off Baldwin."

"Y'know, I resent anyone else calling where we work a crappy little agency. That's supposed to be my line." I hooked my left hand under my right elbow. The sling supported my arm, but it was playing hell with my shoulders and back, and I really wanted to go back to bed and pull the covers over my head. We'd been so proud of finding Shasta so quickly. A successful end to a kidnapping--the girl safe, her father happy, paying us off with tainted cash. I hated to think what the Official was going to do when he heard where the money had originated.

"You're goin' downtown, my friend, to talk to our boss and the police after that." Hobbes grinned in triumph. "Miss Cannell, can we drop you off at home?"

+++++++++++++++

To say the Official was pissed was an understatement. Ballistic would be a more accurate word for it. He ranted and raged around the room like an out of control tank, smashing against chairs and tables until the rest of us took refuge in the hall. Even Eberts looked like he wasn't sure how to get control of the situation, and finally urged us to go on home. There'd be no rational discussion with Charlie Borden that night. Dex was hustled off to the local police after we'd extracted every relevant piece of information germane to our investigations out of him. I should have felt jubilant, but I didn't.

For once, I kind of understood where the Fat Man was coming from. He'd been double-crossed by an old friend he thought of as trustworthy, and a Frat Brother. Delta House or whatever Greek-to-me names they called themselves don't do that to each other. Even my brother Kevin had been in a Frat house while at Cal Tech, one designed for the more serious science nerds--musta been some hella fun group of swinging guys, staying up late slaving over Bunsen burners and bubbling test tubes like junior Dr. Frankensteins.

Probably never had a kegger party, unless they built a still with some extra copper tubing and brewed alittle of their own. Now, that was an image I liked-thinking of Kevin tipsy, dancing around with a petri dish on his head, leaning over to give Claire a…wow, not going there. I'd only recently wrapped my brain around the fact that the two had been an item in college, didn't really want to imagine them doing the two-headed scientist on the floor of the lab. Oh, crap, now I was going to have to read something dry and boring to get that out of my head. Anyway, to get back to the point, Kevin had said he remained tight with his brothers even after he graduated--probably tighter than he'd ever been with me at the time, and he trusted them completely.

The Fat Man had probably had that level of trust with Boris Markov, and look where it had gotten him. Too bad his trust had kept him from doing a thorough background check on the Senator, or we might have known his family connections a lot sooner.

"Darien."

"Y-yeah?" She'd startled me, and with what I'd just been thinking, I blushed.

"Are you alright?" She put a cool hand on my forehead, rubbing my temple with her thumb. "You feel alittle warm, you might be feverish."

"No, Claire, I'm good--just about to go on home. Yep, on home to the ol' bed." Whoops, not a good topic of conversation. "I'm gonna go right to sleep."

"What exactly did you and Bobby learn that has the Official in such a lather?" Claire had wisely steered clear of the main office after we'd hauled Dex in, so I filled her in on the whole sorry affair.

"Bloody hell," she swore. "That's horrible--and now the man is in Switzerland where no one can charge him with a crime."

"About sums it up." Hobbes appeared in the doorway to the office we shared with about half of the other agents here. The Official employed a constantly changing group of men who'd been disgraced in some way from the other Federal alphabet bureaus on a part time basis. It made getting used to anyone else's style hell, which is why Hobbes and I tended to work on our own. We worked like Swiss made watch gears, perfectly meshing with each other to produce the final solution. Only this time, we'd made a mess. "He probably had it planned the whole time. I mean, who goes off to Gstaad on one day's notice?"

"Rich people," I suggested.

"All I'm sayin' is that it was mighty convenient that Ol' Boris had took a ski vacation so abruptly."

"True," I agreed morosely. "And remember how Shasta wanted to know it her Daddy had paid the ransom? "

"She was mighty p.o.'d when I said no." Hobbes rubbed his chin, "Think she was in on it?"

"She was bitching loud enough to wake the dead, but it could have been all a put on," I reasoned, getting very wistful for a full night's sleep in my favorite bed.

"Geeze, bringin' a fifteen year old girl in on a con--the way some people raise their kids," Hobbes fumed.

"Reminds me of Tatum O'Neil," Claire put in brightly. When we both looked blank, she grinned. "I can't believe you both missed a movie reference--Paper Moon!"

"I want my two hunnert dollars," I paraphrased Addie Prey's famous line from the film.

"No, I want a lot more than that, partner, but if you're happy with two C notes, be my guest. I'm going home." Hobbes sketched a wave.

"Good night, Bobby," Claire said affectionately. "Sleep well, Darien."

There were visions of greenbacks dancing in my head, and I knew that I'd have some pleasant dreams.

++++++++++++++++++

In my dreams, I pulled off jobs that would have astounded Interpol, the FBI and our own little agency. I was daring, cunning, and had the reflexes of a cat. At the end of my dream, I sat in my normal little studio, surrounded by piles of gems and negotiable bonds, a stack of gold bullion and for some explicable reason, ten-year-old Tatum O'Neil perched on my couch looking pouty. Crap, I couldn't even dream her as an adult--circa when she was dating McEnroe? She was hotter then.

Even so, I woke with the first glimmerings of a plan. Now, I just had to convince the rest of my Agency colleagues.

During the night, Eberts had sent out little feelers and gotten back the necessary intel. Proving the Senator's duplicity and criminal intent turned out to be even easier than expected. By afternoon, it would be all over the news and his career would be toast. But again, what did he care? He was probably resting by a flagstone hearth, sipping Russian vodka and tonic, indulgently watching little Shasta shush down their private ski slope, content with the couple of mil he had no doubt stashed in a Swiss account. Hard life.

The Agency's entire first string was crammed into the Official's office and nobody wore a happy face, especially our fearless leader, who looked like a bulldog trying to pass a kidney stone.

"Gentlemen…" Eberts started with a prompting from the Official. "The Government has frozen the Senator's assets."

"Get to the point Eberts, or I'll freeze yours," Hobbes threatened.

"His check, the majority of which we used to pay the electronic door expert, has bounced."

"Therefore, we are in the red, and I am not happy about that!" The Fat Man practically shouted. "The bank wants a hefty fee to deal with this."

"Bloody hell." Claire sighed.

"Crap." I had hoped things would be easier than this. Where was the silver lining in the cloud continually hanging over this agency?

"Damn," Monroe and Hobbes said simultaneously, then stared at one another in astonishment.

"We were obliged to tell the proper authorities what we knew about the Senator's illegal activities," Eberts went on. "And their actions were swift."

"And merciless," The Official added.

I put on my encouraging face and announced, "according to Dex, the Senator has a safe full of money in his house."

"Little good it does us there," Charlie Borden grumped.

"Apparently he was planning to launder the cash he paid his daughter's kidnappers with money Stark was filtering through his campaign," Eberts explained.

"What a crook!" Claire exploded.

"Tell us something we don't know, Eberts," Bobby sneered, but his heart wasn't in it, there was no accompanying dig.

"So why did he ask for our help to rescue Shasta if he knew where she was and planned the job the whole time?" Claire asked, fiddling with a long shiny lock of her blond hair.

"All kidnappings have to be reported to a federal authority," Monroe answered, her absolutely red lips pursed like she was sucking a lemon. "He didn't expect Arthur and The Tick here to solve the case. We're not exactly the FBI."

"No, we're better than those fibbies," Hobbes boasted. "We did uncover this whole mess o' worms."

"And we provided cover for him," I said. "A con has to look legit. When we rescued Shasta, he still had to do something with the money, so he paid the bulk of the cash to us. Wrote a check, but he couldn’t exactly put illegal campaign contributions in the bank, then he'd have to report it as income."

"Mr. Stark probably earned that money selling guns to the wrong kind." Eberts shuddered.

"Well, it sure backfired on him when you told the attorneys about his slush fund," I said, "And by this afternoon, we'll never see the money we earned again."

"Well, we're screwed." Bobby groaned.

"Not entirely. It's money he can't admit to, he promised some of it to us. It's all in the safe. I say we go get it."

"Steal from the Senator?" Monroe said with a glint in her eye. "In broad daylight?"

"In essence, we're really stealing from Chrysalis." I grinned at their eager expressions.

"I like your initiative, Fawkes." Charlie Borden nodded with his many chins going along for the ride. "But I cannot condone illegal actions."  
"You up for a second story job?" I grinned in anticipation, holding out a hand to my partner.

"Yah, but you aren't." He shook his head.

"Hey, I'm great," I lied, In fact I hadn't slept all that well after the Tatum O'Neil dream. I don't know if it was the uncomfortable position I have to sleep in to keep the pressure off my left side and right arm, or the fact that I was fantasizing about ten year olds that kept me awake.

"Fawkes, you cannot go traipsing into second story windows like Spiderman with your arm in a sling and a hole in your side."

"I concur, Darien, You haven't recuperated at all." Claire leaned forward, putting a gentle hand on my good arm.

"Ain't anything illegal going to happen, Chief." Hobbes straightened, the idea energizing him. "I'm just going over there by my lonesome to talk to Fernanda. I'll bet she has the rest of those fibbies cowering at the gate, but we're simpatico. Monroe and that guy…Billings can take care of the safe."

"And how will we get in there?" Monroe asked.

"I'll get the back gate perimeter alarms disabled," Hobbes explained.

"No need to disable the alarms," I spoke up, surprised they were forgetting our 'secret weapon.' "I can go in the front door with Hobbes, invisible."

"Darien, no," Claire objected.

"Okay, show of hands, how many of you can open a safe?"

There was an uncomfortable silence as they all glanced at each other. Finally, Alex raised one perfectly manicured hand, her French nail-tips glinting in the overhead lights. "I have," she said with a jut of her chin.

"With electronics or…" I mimed turning the tumblers with my left hand. To be truthful, I wasn't sure how able I was. I'd never cracked a safe left handed, but there was always a first time.

"Electronics. You can do it manually?" she asked incredulously.

"Stock n' trade." I boasted.

"This I have to see."

Despite certain misgivings on everyone's parts, even mine, although I kept those private, a plan was worked out, and very quickly Hobbes and I were back in our usual places: Hobbes driving the van, me riding shotgun. I didn't actually have a shotgun, but was equipped with a tiny video camera hidden in the logo on my hat, and Claire's concern warming my heart. She'd reminded me about ten times that I was in no uncertain terms to remain quicksilvered more than five minutes. Without the monitor, we couldn't gauge my progress very well, and I'd already used up some of my allotted time when Bobby and I had snuck into the Agency yesterday. I'd only barely resisted the urge to reply "yes, mother" to her fussing.

Now, of course, I had Bobby Hobbes to take up the slack while we were on the road.

"You're demented, you know that, Fawkes? You'll get yourself killed one of these days. Any other sane person would be curled up in bed recouping from a knife attack, but oh, no, not Darien 'I am Superman' Friggin' Fawkes. If you even sneeze while you're playing bank robber, I'm hauling you out of there so fast…"

"Hobbesey, your concern is showing." I grinned at him, all teeth, "And not to put too fine of a point on it, but neither one of us would register as sane if we tried. I know how to do this."

"How? Just how are you going to do this? Prove it to me, big shot," Hobbes taunted, looking away from the road for a moment to shoot me a challenge with his eyes. "You've never even been past the…what do you call it…receiving room in the Senator's house before."

"Well, to be technical, I have," I admitted.

"You stayed in the van when I talked to Fernanda the other day."

"It wasn't recently." I scrunched down in my seat a little, knowing Bobby wasn't going to like what I had to say.

"Oh, my God." Hobbes stomped on the brakes too hard, nearly rear-ending a Lexus in front of us. Luckily the light turned red after the Lexus went through the intersection, so we had a minute to talk. "Do not tell me you've burgled Senator Markov's house."

"Okay, I won't. Besides, he was only congressman Markov then--lived in a different house, but from what I've seen, the furniture is the same."

"Oh, do not let the Fat Man hear about this."

"If you don’t tell him, I won't. I'm fairly sure it'll be the same safe, and that one was a piece of cake."

"Fawkes! That was what? Five years ago when he was a congressman--people do get new safes." He floored the gas pedal, causing Golda to surge forward with a jerk that sent bolts of white-hot pain through my side when I slammed into the seat. Just perfect.

"I can handle it, Bobby. Just do your part to keep Fernanda occupado and I'll do my schtick," I assured through clenched teeth.

As Hobbes had predicted, Avenue de Las Pulgas was a sea of cars--local police, feds, and the first wave of news vans, sniffing out a story. There hadn't been any late breaking coverage yet on the local stations, but it was only a matter of time before all hell broke loose. I only hoped that none of the other alphabet bureaus had gotten a warrant to search Markov's place yet. I wanted to be the first into his office on the second floor. Dex had given us a fairly detailed description of the place; where the safe was, that the windows were alarmed, so I had a reasonable chance of getting in and out fast as long as nobody else had stolen our thunder. Technically, we were probably in a gray to mostly black area here--it was stealing, persay, but if Fernanda let us in, there'd be no illegal entry--thus not a B and E. We were only planning to take what was promised to us, after all, and look for any incriminating information. The Agency was not greedy, although we were desperate.

The harried man at the gate recognized the van and stepped out to hear what Bobby had to say. With a nod, he opened the portals just enough to let us through. I almost expected to hear the squeal of metal on metal, but Golda sucked in her lovehandles and we squeaked through. All the staff thought of us as heroes--we'd saved the Senorita Shasta. Too bad they didn’t know what a crook her father was.

"You're on, Inviso-boy," Hobbes whispered. I'd been hiding in the back of the van since we arrived on the street and when he opened the car door to get out, I let the quicksilver flow and followed him. I'd switched on the tiny video camera in my hat to give Agent Monroe some nice visuals of the grounds, and the portico.

"Senor Bobby!" Fernanda must have been letting her hair down while the master was out of town, or she was hoping for a return visit from her amour. She had sausaged herself into a pair of jeans and a purple sweatshirt proclaiming her 'One Hot Mama.' She enveloped Bobby in a hug and led him inside to the house.

Do you remember on the Beverly Hillbillies how the foyer had a long staircase that curved up the wall, away from a round marble tiled floor? Markov's house was an almost identical copy. I headed straight up the stairs, listening to Hobbes let Fernanda lead him back into the kitchen for some homemade tamales. Maybe after I finished picking the safe, I could take a dip in the ce-ment pond and swipe acouple of those tamales for myself. I was hungry, now that I paid attention to my stomach. I'd been too excited about the return to my roots to eat this morning.

Second floor-family bedrooms and the Senator's office. Once I was past the landing, I let the quicksilver flake off while I peered into each room. Hopefully, with Shasta and her dad away, there'd be no real reason for any of the servants to be up here.

It wasn't hard to figure out which was Shasta's room. A pink ruffled little girl bed complete with a canopy warred with lurid drawings of vampires, spooky looking mansions on high Cornish cliffs and very detailed, gruesome illustrations of Jack the Ripper slashing up a few Whitechapel prostitutes. Ricky Martin's "La Vida Loca" poster hung up next to the Ripper. Really odd girl, Shasta. I had to admit, she had talent. The Goth crowd would probably pay big for her sketches which could be a potential career move now that she would need to earn money for her Daddy's defense--if he ever got caught, that is.

Just past a bathroom dripping with more gold leaf than King Tut's tomb was a bastion of maleness--Markov's inner sanctum. All leather, wood paneling and a desk that could seat twelve to dinner. There was a bar in one corner of the room with a black marble counter top, crystal decanters filled with the finest whiskey and gin and a dazzling display of old fashioned bottles, some of them more than one hundred years old. Just below the bar was the safe, hidden behind a panel that looked like a second refrigerator. I trailed my hand along the edge of the counter to feel for the small lever Dex had described. Sure enough, I fingered a small indentation on the underside of the bar, pushed, and presto, the white panel swung open.

Hobbes would be thrilled. It wasn't the exact same safe as five years ago, but the next year's model, which meant the inner workings were virtually the same. Piece of cake.

To loosen up my fingers I played scales on an air piano, up from C to G , then down again and got comfortable on the floor. Rotating my neck once to the left, and back to the right, I took a few deep breaths. The weight of my arm in the sling was still bothering my back and I slid my right arm out carefully to let it rest on my folded knee. Another cleansing breath, which reminded me again that I was still healing between the ribs.

Clear the mind of all distractions. Blank out the annoying aches and pains. Find your center, Grasshopper. Never rush a safe cracking. It pays to be calm, focused and in control of the situation--a lot like using the qs gland. Going insane was not an option. Attention to the smallest detail, the tiniest sound.

I swung the combination dial around once experimentally, remembering what number had been at the top when I started. A lot of people are lazy and leave the dial on the last number of the combination when they open up the safe. From prior experience, I knew the Senator was one of them, so it was a good bet that 6 was the last number… Now, I just had to get the right configuration for the first set of numbers to crack the code. I had a head start, since Eberts had supplied me with the Senator's birthday, as well as Shasta's, along with the dates of any other important days we figured might be significant to the man.

Bingo--some people are so predictable. It took less than a minute to get 6-22-5-6-which was Boris's birthday--June 22tnd 1956. Oh, wonderful, we were born in the same week, I'm the 27th. That just made my day. Wonder if there was something about the zodiac sign of cancer that made us more prone to illegal activities?

This particular brand of safe was considered secure by some because it had another combination dial inside, once the outer door was breached. I tried Shasta's birthday on a whim-11-11-8-5. Since she was born on the day that ended WWI, when the treaty of Versailles was signed, I gave a silent 'voila' when the inner door swung open. And then allowed myself a sigh of contentment and feasted my eyes on piles of American currency, still wrapped neatly in the little bands that the bank puts on them. Ben Franklin smiled beautifically up at me, no doubt still dreaming about making the turkey the official bird.

Selecting a few bundles, I decided to err on the side of caution and forgo counting out the exact amount we required. What was a few extra hundred to a man like Boris Markov? There had to be close to a million in here, all sequential and brand spanking new. The man had no head for criminal behavior. Any real mastermind would have dirtied up the cash, separated it out so the serial numbers didn't climb in a logical fashion, and maybe asked for smaller bills? Even the Agency was going to have a bit of difficulty explaining why we had all hundreds, but oh well, I felt like the lotto ticket I'd bought really had paid off big.

I took a few precious moments for the benefit of my viewing audience back at the agency to read through some of the papers filed next to the cash. It didn't take a prosecuting attorney to know that Senator Markov was going to be spending some quality time in the Federal pen, but I'd let the FBI think they found them and left the papers behind. We already had counted coup on him first with the phony kidnapping story.

Stashing the money in the convenient black silk sling, I invisibled us both and walked out the way I had come. I was cutting it close and way over the five minutes of quicksilver that Claire had made me promise to limit myself to by the time I got back to the van. Hobbes had left the sliding door ajar and I climbed in with a wince. My head was starting to ache in the back, high up on my neck. Bobby better get back soon, or I'd be over the cuckoo's nest with Jack Nicholson and the gang.

I located Hobbes' cell phone where he'd left it on the car seat and dialed the Markov house number.

"Allo?" A heavily accented voice answered. Maybe we should have INS investigate along with everyone else. The ill fated Baldwin had been the single gringo on the Senator's staff. I hoped for Fernanda's sake she had a green card. "See-nator Markov's rez'dance."

"It is urgent that I speak with Agent Hobbes," I said in my best FBI voice.

"Chest a moment." She set the phone down with a clunk and called "Senor Bobby!"

"Hel-lo?" Bobby asked melodiously, obviously buttering up Fernanda with fakey smiles. I could hear it in his voice, along with a tight edge which said to me he was more than ready to leave.

"Hey, Batman, I really need to get back to the batcave soon, or you may have Mr. Madness in the van with you."

"Oooh, yes sirree, Robin." He understood immediately, "No problem, I'll be right there."

Good to his word, as always, Bobby clambered into the driver's seat less than five minutes later, waggling his fingers at Fernanda, a bag wafting with delicious smells under his arm.

"Packed you a doggy bag, did she?" I teased from my hiding place behind the seats. "Must be true love."

"Wouldn't be a bad life." Hobbes pretended to consider this, "The woman can cook like an angel." He backed the van out of the driveway, past the glowering faces of our rival agents. "Did you get it?"

"In spades--or should I say hundreds? Stacks and stacks of them." I winced, climbing into the passenger seat when he stopped for a red light. Leaning over, I pulled the knotted scarf full of money into my lap. I didn't want to bring it up, but it would be a really good thing if Hobbes drove alittle faster. I had an overwhelming urge to check my snake tattoo, but that would be a waste of time. Before the knifing, I had just gotten to the point where I could guesstimate the number of green segments left on the ourobros--and the headache that was already pounding in my brain was most definitely saying there was one or two segments left, tops.

"Don't go back sliding into your old ways, my friend, or I will hunt you down like a dog." Hobbes grinned to show he didn't mean it.

"Huh--you'd never find me, I'm the invisible man," I boasted. Yah, the invisible man who was treading way too close to the edge of the precipice right now. The craving for counteragent was a physical pain, aside from the one in my head. The banter kept my mind off what was happening inside my mind.

"Think you're so smart? Bobby Hobbes is a trained agent, my friend. Got the tracking instincts of a bloodhound." He puffed himself up, raising his eyebrows. "Plus the thermals… So, show me the money."

"Need a little cash, Bobby?" I pulled out a bundle of greenbacks, holding them out in front of his face. Hobbes' eyes nearly bugged out of the sockets, his fingers tightening on the wheel. I knew Hobbes was too principled to take a bribe--my influence had maybe given him a mild larcenous streak, but he would never have taken any of the money before handing it over to the Official. Now, stealing from Markov had been another thing all together--he'd given us no reason to respect him what so ever.

"Fawkes, don't do that while I'm driving," Bobby said faintly, but his eyes followed the money back into the scarf before Golda put on a burst of speed.

*********************

In my opinion, we made it to the keep just in the nick of time. I'd caught a glimpse of my eyes in the rear view mirror as I climbed out of the van and it looked like I'd broken a blood vessel or something. Little tendrils of red were slithering across the white sclera, the advancing army of the Mongol horde. Claire didn't even have to ask what I wanted when she saw me, but turned immediately to the refrigerator to get out the counteragent. I hauled myself up onto the exam chair while Hobbes dropped the scarf full of contraband onto a deserted chair.

Our timing was so precise that the pain like a javelin through the back of the skull hit just as Claire jabbed the needle into my neck. I arched off the chair, feeling Bobby's steadying hand on my arm holding me in place as my body convulsed reflexively. The counteragent ripped roughshod through my veins, leaving me flopped bonelessly against my partner's shoulder with my eyes squeezed shut. God, I hate this.

We'd outwitted the madness once more, and I was sane for a few more days. It felt pretty good.

"You okay, partner?" Hobbes asked sympathetically as Claire's cool hands rubbed my back between the shoulder blades.

When I nodded without speaking, he gave a curt nod of his own. This was normal for us--no need to dwell on something that couldn’t be changed, just march on ahead once it was dealt with.

"I'll just take this on over to the Fish's office. Make him a happy man." He hefted the money-laden scarf, then reached over to retrieve the video camera hat from off my head.

"Meet ya there," I agreed, taking a deep enough breath to give me energy for a few more hours. I wasn't sure I had the strength to walk back down the hall.

"I have good news for you, Darien." Claire smiled winningly at me, swiping one long strand of blond hair behind her ear.

"Yah? Cuz I could use some," I said wearily, bracing my left side with an elbow in order to stand.

"I think you should be proud of yourself." She bent over to pick up a small box from beside her computer, "You got back the money and exposed the Senator's nefarious deeds."

"Claire, you’re been reading too many crime novels--nobody uses nefarious anymore." I peered at what she was holding. "So, what's your news?"

"I've repaired the monitor." She beamed, shaking the box before returning it to the table.

"Hallelujah." I grabbed her into a hug, then impulsively twirled her around in an elated waltz. "When can you put it back in?" I panted, my arms still around her. The dance had demonstrated my mood, but it had done nothing for my aching right arm. Maybe that sling had been a good idea after all.

"Be careful with my stitches," Claire admonished untangling herself and slipping a supporting hand under my arm, "And you'll have to finish a full course of antibiotics, first."

"But that's…"

"Seven more days, Darien." She gave me a conciliatory pat, her voice firm. "Just stay out of trouble, don't quicksilver again under any circumstances and it's only one more shot of counteragent for you before them."

"Easy for you to say," I grumped.

"Easy for you to do." She made shooing motions, "Now, go get your congratulations. You've earned them."

****************************

"Very, very well done, gentlemen." The Official sat proudly behind his desk, centered perfectly below the crest proclaiming this an office of the Department of Health and Human services. He smiled jovially, as if he'd had anything to do with the caper.  


"Good visuals, Fawkes," Monroe commented dryly.

"Liked my manual dexterity?" I grinned smugly at her.

Eberts was hauling the bundles of cash out of the scarf and piling them on the end of the Official's desk, his mouth moving silently as he counted. Bobby was watching intently. In fact, I don’t think he'd let the money out of his sight since I'd first showed it to him.

"I've spoken to a few of my contacts in Washington." Alex said, "And the U.S. government is already in contact with authorities in the Swiss government to discuss an extradition treaty to bring that crook of a senator back home for his day in court."

"Vote for him, Alex?" I asked sweetly. She made no further comment, just gave me a smile without teeth.

"It makes me proud to have my team working together for a profitable end." Charlie Borden proclaimed, "Finished counting yet, Eberts?"

"Just about eight hundred over what the Senator had originally promised to pay us." Eberts announced with a flush of success. "I think that can justifiably be counted as interest on the bounced check."

"Hefty fees," Hobbes murmured. He leaned over Eberts' shoulder to touch the nearest pile of cash. Eberts slapped his hand. Hobbes glared back at him.

I thought for a moment there was going to be a pitched battle of tongues sticking out, but Eberts pulled himself together at the last moment. Alex sat snickering behind her hand, tapping one suede stiletto against the leg of her chair like she had somewhere else to be.

"We will be reinstating your bonuses soon, since our unexpected windfall covers the door repair expenses." The little toady intoned, barely managing not to sneer in Bobby's face.

"Listen, guys, I hate to bring this up," I said unhappily, as enamoured of those shining piles of greenbacks beckoning from the edge of the desk as the rest of them. How hard would it be just to grab up one of those bundles and go on a gambling spree in Vegas? Or at least buy Hobbes a new van? "But that money is traceable."

"Leave it to the thief to remember," Hobbes said sotto voce, finally turning so he wasn't facing Eberts, but could still keep his eyes on the money.

"Ah Sir, Darien, Robert, Miss Monroe, I have taken the liberty of opening an account in a small bank in the Cayman Islands that should be sufficient for our needs."

"Good man, Eberts," The Official said gruffly.

"My man, Ebs!" I gave him a high five, then rapped knuckles with him. "You need anyone to handle the transaction personally?"

"That's being handled," he said imperiously. "The bank transactions should only take one or two working days, then I shall redistribute your checks."

"About fuckin' time," Hobbes directed towards me.

"Well, then, I'm outta here." Monroe stood, smoothing the tight black leather jacket she was wearing like anyone was paying attention.

"Good night, Miss Monroe," Eberts called after her.

"Good night, Eberts." She pursed her reddened lips just at him like a model in a make-up ad before turning to go.

"Well, partner, I think this calls for a celebration." Hobbes threw out his arms expansively, draping one arm over my shoulder as we walked out. "Ya done good. Interested in acouple of drinks--maybe some dancing girls?"

"No, Hobbes, about the only thing I'm interested in is about forty hours in bed, with the covers over my head." I smiled suddenly, as the comely doctor came out of the elevator from the basement, "Claire! Bobby's got his celebration hat on, you're free, aren't you?"

"What makes you think I'm free?" she said flirtatiously. "I'm worth quite a lot, I'll have you know."

"Too rich for my blood." I backed up, playing matchmaker. "Bobby, though, he's got a bonus burning a hole in his pocket, haven't you partner?"

"Fawkes, what the heck are you getting at?" he grumbled, embarrassment creeping up his cheeks until his bald scalp was tinged pink.

"Just a little fishing expedition, my friend. I just thought you'd better reel it in or cut bait."

"Is this some weird American slang for the Fish?" Claire asked mystified.

"It's Fawkes tryin' to be funny. He's not very good at it." Hobbes gave me a withering glance. "There's a new seafood restaurant down by the pier, Claire, are you interested? " He pulled the slightly squished bag of tamales out of his pocket and handed them over. They still smelled great. "The punk here's just going home."

"Certainly, Bobby, I'd love to." Claire linked arms with him, giving me an impertinent wink as they strolled out.

I followed them at a distance, a Beatles song scoring my steps. "Here comes the sun, it seems like years since it's been here." It may be darkest just before dawn, but once the sun comes up, life can be pretty bright after all.

Exiting the Harding building, I slid on a pair of shades as an orange glowing ball sank down into the west, and I headed for my bed. Sometimes being a thief had its advantages. Now, if I could just get that gland out of my head…

 

FIN


End file.
